,0' 



> 






-,0 



W-: 




° (R^, 



_^i 



w/A I 



4 






^^'^.. 



V 



■i*'^^*!:'' ^^^ 



'/ 






^ 












^. 










-^^0^ 







^^ 



v^. 









^> -t 


^*'' 


^"V. ^W 








-^^0^ 



.^ 



,4 o^ 



o V o -5, 



A' 




^" .^' 



0^ 






-^--0^ 



..'". 'S;^°y^ "%%*•- ./% ^-^p" ,^ 



('I >:<■■ \\\\ ' c,-' ^.r> 



C 



4 O 





.■••., <^^ ,0^ ,' V -, ■> 





0' 



oK 



\ 



':j:^'-- 



^. 



^* .-i^SCc- x/ 







,0 



^"-^-^^ 



'^0' 



4 o 



:f 



,G^ \5 ^^11%^ /\ 










o -.,n' ,0- 

,s^ A <!'. "o.*" .G^ \5 *'7^T* A xf. 'o.** .G^ 



o'^; 






o 
o 



"'^. 






t- 

.<--* 






<**, 
■^ 




ADUG'5EYEV[EW0fT/t^K 

In V/bich theVaorious Deeds Performed by a. 
Dattery of field Artilleiy*inIorei^n Landsi 
During the^M-sl9]7and08«are5etPown* 
in Ihe Mope The/ Me^ Recall 1o Doddering 
Old Age t the Scenes of Our Warrior Days* 
Wienlhe/ ^TeLon^ Since Gone I: 




fi-ivaJelx Fhntedii; bytbe Members of Bevttety F4 
One /iundred ondfoftxHiTrthKUratedStates [Teld AftiUefySf 



A Bug's-Eye View of 
The War 



By 
CHARLES G. MacARTHUR '-^ 



Copyright, 1919 
By CHARLES G. MacARTHUR 



\^ 



For Battery F, One Hundred and Forty-Ninth Field Artillery 



©CI.A5a5745 






NOV 17 1919 ^ 



Tr- 



\ 



/A 
\ 







Colonel Henry J. Reilly 
A Hard Riding, Square Shootin' Commander of Men 



^T^O two who sleep in France — 
whose cheerfulness in the 
dark places gave us courage — 
whose unselfishness won our love^ 
and whose bravery in death adds 
radiance to life everlasting. 





TLitnt Col. Curtis; #. S^thhtn 
^ ^olbicr anb a Jtlan 



Foreword 

THE writer of this rather botchy yarn had a grandfather who 
served in the Civil War. It was the custom of the old gentle- 
man to relate, with some show of pride, incidents of that con- 
flict in which he usually figured as a principal. So breathless was 
his recital of heroism that it nearly landed him in Congress at one 
time, although certain of his political opponents circulated a report 
at the time of his candidacy that grandpa broke his shin on the way 
to the concentration camp and never shouldered anything more mur- 
derous than a borrowed umbrella. While these base insinuations 
never prevailed against the old boy's sterling reputation in the com- 
munity, how idle would they have been had he kept a diary and had 
it printed and passed around! 

Lest it be forgotten, here is your record, set up in imperishable 
type — alms for oblivion. Changing points of view and lack of con- 
temporaneous records have made it imperfect in many ways ; but 
Memory has been a friend. I aim to suggest, rather than narrate, 
and perhaps the incidents that have been omitted will be recalled 
by their associations in these pages. 

It is called a bug's-eye view of the war because in reality that was our 
viewpoint. Food and sleep and work were our chief concerns, Mr. Wil- 
son's speeches to the contrary, notwithstanding. If at any time we were 
crusaders, our objective was a ration dump; and nearly all of us 
felt that our obligations to Old Man La Fayette were discharged along 
with our food on the transport going over. Communiques and the 
progress of war loans seldom excited our interest, if at all. This is 
not an indictment of our patriotism, for we decided upon the purposes 
of the war long before we enlisted. 

No attempt, therefore, has been made to tell the story of the war. 
Only when it has been necessary has reference to it been made at all. 
This is only a simple tale of the smiles and tears and schoolboy scraps 
the bloomin' war occasioned in a little group of men banded together 
for its duration. Histories of what the millions did are already on 
sale, and reference to the war's larger events would be tiresome repe- 
tition here. 



L^,.'/^^^ 




H~ 



Capiain HcwanJ R.Sione 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Work on these pages began in our last weeks along the Rhine. 
The barnstorming manner of our return to America, and the ten- 
second pace of civilian life since, have been hindrances to its comple- 
tion. The manuscript — notes would be a better term — has never 
been revised into literature. But the limitations and shortcomings of 
the guy who wrote it are so well known by the gang that no one will 
be surprised at the omission, and apologies are unnecessary. 

Charles G. MacArthur, 
Private, Battery F, 149th F. A. 



This^ Then,, Is Our Story 



DURING the evening of October 31, 1917, the United States 
transport President Lincoln, with the 149th Field Artillery 
somewhere in her coal bunkers, slipped into the harbor of 
Saint Nazaire, at the mouth of the river Loire. Thirteen 
days were occupied in the trip across, which was entirely free from 
periscopes and from pleasures. As the ship neared the harbor entrance 
all of the men were ordered below, where they remained until dark. 

Five days after the ship had docked, the men were still under quar- 
antine on board ship, lowering dollar bills in campaign hats to the 
honest river people in exchange for bars of chocolate or a few apples, 
watching the transports of the convoy slide into the locks, and wig- 
wagging to the sailors on shore, asking if the retail price of cham- 
pagne was really 95 cents the quart bottle. Interest was sometimes 
excited by the countless women in black, and by the long lines of 
German prisoners on their way to work, and the red-legged territorials 
who escorted them. After the first day in port, unloading details on 
the dock gave the ambitious members of the battery a chance to say 
that they had put their feet on French soil, as if there was a chance 
that the boat would turn back to the States without allowing them to 
land. 

Competition stimulated the work of unloading, and, as a reward for 
finishing first, most of the men aboard the "Lincoln" were given shore 
leave on Sunday afternoon. More freedom was allowed on Monday 
morning, but, because it was planned to leave the ship that day, passes 
were recalled. Colonel Reilly had more of a job recalling the men. 
Some of them had beaten the gun and reached town before the passes 
were canceled. 

The regiment disembarked about noon. The batteries cheered the 
sailors, the sailors cheered the batteries, and Commander Sterling of 
the "Lincoln" made a speech. The men filed down the gang plank 
under full pack and assembled on the dock. 



12 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



The regiment began its march with the band playing "Sambre et 
Meuse" and every other French march that Mr. Sylvester could con- 
veniently think of. The march brought us through the town, where 
the people watched us curiously and without applause, and along the 
bay until we reached Camp Number 1, humorously described by the 
War Department as a "rest camp." It lies four kilometers outside of 
the town, overlooking the bay. 

For several weeks rain had been falling upon this garden spot, and 
the last part of the hike was accomplished in about six inches of soupy 
mud. The mud in the barracks was of about the same depth. Unac- 
customed to marching after our life on the ship, first thoughts were 
of beds and beans. We got the beans. But Battery D saw the straw 
pile first. We had to decide whether a raid would be conducted on 
Battery D or whether we would sleep in the mud. Battery D was 
saved for service at the front by the discovery of a barn full of straw, 
and we were all tucked in at 6 o'clock. For the first time in the history 
of the organization, passes to town were turned down. 

The following day an enterprising general discovered that a brigade 
of Marines had commenced to build a reservoir about five miles from 
the camp. This discovery promptly provoked an idea, and most of 
Battery F reacted to the general's hunch. With picks, shovels, water 
wings and boots, the men were led to a thousand-acre swamp and 
given a look at the Marines' reservoir. Half of the men thought it 
was a new dry dock for the Leviathan ; the rest thought they had 
stumbled onto the Panama canal. It was said that Marines abandoned 
the project because they were ordered to the front. Our supposition 
was that they had all been drowned. In the light of later events, it 
appears that the National Guard were merely being called upon to 
finish what the Marines had started. As the war progressed, this 
became a custom. 

On the 7th of November the reservoir was called off, and it was 
announced that a little hike had been ordered. More rain had fallen 
and mud stood on the roads nearly a foot deep. In consequence we 
were allowed to wear the rubber boots we had been issued at Camp 
Mills. This was a wonderful chance, and everybody took advantage 
of it. 

First Lieutenant Howard R. Stone, who had been assigned to the 
battery on the boat, was in charge. Incidentally, he did not wear rub- 
ber boots. Neither did his principal abetters, the B. C. detail. These 
gentlemen started the cadence at 185 steps to the minute — for the first 
fifteen minutes. By that time the detail was a parade by itself, with 
the rest of the battery some kilometers in the rear. They had been 
singing "That's Where My Money Goes," but in some way the song 
had died, and the boys were making some rather pointed remarks 
concerning rubber boots and the mentality and general characteristics 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 13 



of detail men. A halt was called. The battery reassembled. The 
march was resumed. But the detail was undiscouraged. A series of 
halts and more halts took place, and the battery reached Saint Marc, 
its destination. 

"Fall out" was given, and in fifteen minutes everything in Saint 
Marc, with the single exception of a statue of Rousseau in the market 
place, had been sold. By ordering the detail to the rear of the column. 
Lieutenant Stone got his battery home. But to this day — sixteen 
months and twelve days afterward — Battery F men are still getting 
quarters on the sore feet they got on the march to Saint Marc. (Or 
trying to, at least.) 

Our twenty-second straight dinner of hard tack and corned Bill was 
waiting when the last straggler returned. The afternoon was given 
over to the intricacies of squads East and West. 

Drills, details, and lectures on perils venereal by Eminent Persons 
continued until the morning of November 11, when we were awakened 
a little after midnight and told to get ready for the road. The railroad 
station of Saint Nazaire was reached at about half past two, and the 
work of loading battery equipment into the trick French train com- 
menced. It was hard work, but it was completed by daylight. We 
were assigned to box cars bearing the old, old inscription, "40 
Hommes : 8 Chevaux," and we received our first issue of traveling 
rations, corned Willie, tomatoes and hard tack. 

The train tooted and squealed, a lurch or two, and we were off. As 
long as daylight held out our heads were poked from every available 
opening in the cars. Windmills, canals and chateaux popped up along 
the way, and everybody fought to point them out and explain that 
they were windmills, canals and "chat-oos." Some few of the battery 
had their first glimpse of Loire scenery by peeking out from between 
other spectators' shins. Every farmer and crossing guard received a 
yell and a "Veev la France" as we crawled by. 

At last — to be exact, at 2 :30 in the following afternoon, the con- 
ductor is reported to have told the engineer that the train could go no 
farther. He pointed out that for twelve hours we had been going 
deeper into a wilderness from which we would never find our way 
and that the limit of desolation had been reached at the village of Guer. 
Accordingly, we were put off at this place, probably the loneliest spot 
in the world. 

The battery was met by trucks at the town and taken three kilo- 
meters to Camp de Coetquidan, a pile of wooden barracks scattered 
on top of the steepest and muddiest hill in France. According to the 
natives of the place, its site was selected for political prisoners by 
Napoleon because he believed it to be the most inaccessible and dreary 
spot in Europe. It still is. 



14 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



For a few days we lived in fairly habitable barracks, with two long 
shelves separated by a central aisle serving as beds. Each night most 
of the battery visited the souvenir shacks at the foot of the hill and 
traded a vast number of francs for highly colored silk handkerchiefs, 
pink piano scarfs and ladies' silk underclothing, handsomely embroid- 
ered with French and American flags and with expressions of inter- 
national good will stitched into them in pale blue silk. The expression, 
"Vive la Franc," as expressive of the natives' attitude, became famous 
in the first week. 

At length the German prisoners who had been holding us up for 
permanent accomodations moved out of their fenced-in barracks and 
we took possession. A little fumigating and whitewashing seemed to 
be necessary, so the battery was split into details for this purpose. The 
dirt floors were dug up, sprayed and patted down. Walls, ceilings and 
paper windows were whitewashed. Stoves and cots were moved in. 
So were the men. Those who had the whitewashing in charge were 
dipped in their own preparation after the operation. Others, for 
obscure reasons, had their heads clipped. Messrs. "Red" Lowrance 
and "Buck" Somers, apparently seeking distinction, left scalp locks 
trailing downwards from their respective beans, and succeeded in 
frightening the entire population of Rennes into the belief that they 
were the last of the Mohicans, on the following Sunday. 

During the whitewashing process our hrst mail came. The date 
is worth remembering — November 13. It had been sent to Camp Mills 
and forwarded. All of us were comforted to learn that our parents 
and friends knew men who were on the inside of things at Washing- 
ton, and who said, by gosh, that the Rainbow Division would spend 
the winter at Camp Mills, and that it was hardly likely it would ever 
see France. 

The first step in our training period came when Captain Benedict 
signed up for the guns on the 17th of November. Gun drill, however, 
did not commence until the following week. 

The same Saturday overnight passes were given to Rennes, forty 
kilometers away. This trip was achieved daily by a wobbly little engine 
and four wobbly little cars, and by ten per cent of the battery, once a 
week. It took from four to six hours on pleasant days, and a week 
in bad weather. Its roadbed rivaled a scenic railway in dips and turns. 

On one of these trips Walter Birkland and "Red" Hartigan kicked 
the stopcock from the air brake just as the train was snaking up a 
forty per cent grade. The train stopped and the little engine sweated 
and struggled to keep on the grade, but it was too late. Picking up 
speed at every second, the train rolled back into the valley and backed 
up the opposite slope. Momentum giving out, she started forward 
again and almost reached her starting point before slipping back once 
more into the valley. This probably would have continued indefinitely 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 15 



had not the engineer leaped from the cab and placed a rock on the 
track just as the train was making its fourth trip ahead. 

Then the train crew, in dazzling array of gold lace, visited the rear 
platform and discovered what had caused the accident. They com- 
plained bitterly to the soldiers on the rear platform and intimated that 
Lafayette was a chump for going abroad, when if he had stayed at 
home nothing like this would have happened. The missing stopcock 
was recovered after a two hours' search of the right of way, and the 
Rennes-Coetquidan Flyer got in on her own steam. 

In November, 1917, Rennes was a good town to visit on an over- 
night pass. The people were hospitable, the town was old and pic- 
turesque, and the hotels were good. By doing a 220-yard dash from 
the railroad station to the town, the privates usually were able to beat 
the officers to the most desirable rooms, which added a great deal to 
the pleasure of the trip. Everything was there that contributed to a 
good time — old ruins, soldiers of a dozen nationalities, the Foyers du 
Soldat at 19 and 47 ; and real dinners, with fifty egg omelettes followed 
by more fifty egg omelettes, and fried squab confiture and a few dozen 
plates of French pastry for chasers. Some of the squab was not fried. 

For the remaining 90 per cent of the battery there were stables on 
these Sundays (although not until later) and carriages to shine up, and 
— if they could put it over — Beignon and Plelan and Guer. 

Of the three towns, the favorite was Plelan. It was also the farthest 
place along the road where the appearance of an American soldier 
was the signal for the entire population to stage the mob scene from 
"Julius Caesar" and drown the visitor in six-sou cider. Time was in 
these little villages when an American uniform would bring a six-egg 
omelette, unasked ; and perhaps it will now. There were Le Forges and 
Porcaro and the castle of Trescessan, of happy and omelettic memory, 
all of them from ten to fifteen kilometers awa}^ And half wa}^ to 
Guer was The Hermitage, where Mile. Helen roasted spring chicken at 
fourteen francs a copy, and issued a tell to those of her customers who 
insisted on eating their salad at the wrong time and forgot to use 
napkins. 

At the fringe of the camp were the usual put-up-in-a-hurry shacks 
for the sale of light wines and beers at prescribed hours. These were 
operated by thrifty coin shepherds of a doubtful class, whose idea of 
enterprise was to wreathe their places with French and American flags 
and start up brisk if unsuccessful competition with the Y. M. C. A. We 
had the Franco-American Bar, the "Star Splang Banner" Saloon and the 
Lafayette Bar, all running in cut-throat competition. Before we had 
been in camp a week, a real enterprising gentleman moved in and 
erected the Stars and Stripes Saloon. The opening was a pretentious 
affair, and when it was discovered that this Foxy Grandpa of saloon- 
keepers had built a wooden rail in front of the bar and had installed 



16 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



mirrors in back of it, he couldn't handle the business. The new saloon's 
competitors undoubtedly would have been forced into bankruptcy if 
they had not remodeled their establishments. The proprietors of the 
"Stars and Stripes" and the "Star Splang Banner" were soon after- 
wards told to close up or change their names. 

Few of the patrons of these places were from Battery F. Not from 
moral reasons, necessarily, but because most of the fellows were out 
exploring every Sunday, trying to find some place that no one from 
the battery had ever seen before. When such a place was found, inti- 
mate friends were at once notified and a party was planned for the 
following Sunday. Jack Houston, one of the most conscientious 
objectors-to- walking alive, dragged Birkie and "Cush" Pryor and 
"Bud" Boyles at least thirty-five miles one Sunday afternoon by telling 
them that he knew of a place "three or four kilometers down the road" 
where they had a white tablecloth on the table and asparagus tips in 
cream. When the diners-out returned to the battery, some time after 
midnight. Jack was still alibi-ing himself with : 

"Well, what are you kicking about] It was a swell place, wasn't it?" 
But with reveille on Monday morning came the old grind. Drills, 
details and discipline ; schools of all kinds ; inspections, guard mounts 
in the mud. Our guns came on the 17th of November, and for a while 
the routine became less tiresome. They were hauled by hand to the 
ordnance repair shop for inventory, and a few got permission to work 
the breech block. The following Monday they didn't need it. 

Gun crews were slipping and sliding around in the mud, lowering 
shields and removing muzzle covers, poking dummy shells into the 
guns, yelling "r-r-raddy" and "set," and going in and out of abatage 
in nothing flat. In the weeks that followed before we fired live ammu- 
nition, competition for places on the first four gun crews was as keen 
as it has ever been in the battery since. This was caused partly by the 
prospective distinction of getting killed (even the Field Artillery regu- 
lations held out that hope) and the old mud river that ran from the 
stable to the watering trough. 

After a day's simulated fire at point-blank ranges, the Hot Stove 
League would throw another chair into the fire and allow that the 
Number 1 man was sure to get killed first because his position took 
him in advance of the sight shield to get the rammer staff. Number 
3 men took great consolation from their position behind the caisson, 
and shielded by the doors, which were supposed to keep out an eleven- 
inch shell. A good-natured jealousy sprang up between prospective 
gunners, which disappeared when the prospective gunners learned that 
they were not prospective. 

In the first weeks of our training (on November 25) Captain Bruce 
W. Benedict, who had been with the battery since its organization, 
was ordered to the Staff Officers' School at Langres. Command of 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 17 



the battery was taken by our present captain, Howard R. Stone, then 
first lieutenant. The departure of Captain Benedict was attended by 
a good deal of regret both on the part of the men and their com- 
mander. His interest in the battery was so personal that it might have 
been termed fatherly. The original members of the battery he knew 
from association with them at the University, and his anxiety for them 
was apparent from the first. Although he never returned to his first 
command, he kept in touch with it constantly throughout the war. At 
the war's close he was an officer in the Tank Corps. 

Thanksgiving came and gave us an opportune day of rest. The War 
Department was a great institution in those days, prescribing a pound 
and a half of turkey for everybody. Strangely, we got it. The sur- 
rounding country was prowled for holly and mistletoe, tables were 
built in the mess hall, and the cooks tried to look amiable for the 
occasion. It was a great meal, and a great day, except for those on 
guard. Later in the evening a stag party was held in the kitchen and 
gradually extended itself to the three barracks. The band played and 
a pageant, in which Mr. Yacullo represented himself as an Italian 
organ grinder and Mr. Pryor as the monkey, wound in and out of the 
barracks. The hand organ was supplied by the telephone detail, which 
loaned one of its instruments for the spectacle. Thrills were provided 
when Mr. Daugherty was beaned with a mess utensil, and Mr. Mac- 
Farland, late of Senn High, got some Triple Sec in his eye, a circum- 
stance which prevented him from reading Schopenhauer for nearly 
three days. 

Time was occupied with details and guard and drill until December 5, 
when the battery fired for the first time. This was the event for which 
we had been planning since our arrival at Coetquidan, and the order 
brought a thrill. Early in the afternoon we set out for the range. Two 
circumstances of the trip are noteworthy because of the contrast they 
afford at the end of the war. One was the position of the cannoneers 
on top of the carriages. Had a cannoneer mounted a carriage in the 
last days of the war there is little doubt that he would have been 
instantly killed and then court-martialed at the first stop. The other 
circumstance was the pep of the horses, who couldn't be held. We 
dragged the guns to our last position in the war, by hand. 

Our first firing position was on a bare hillside three kilometers from 
camp. Lines were strung, trail circles dug, and the cannoneers looked 
as important as they could, waiting for the word to fire. Everybody 
tried to look important, even the general. Lieutenant Stone was in 
command of the battery, and the firing executive, "Pappy" Le Prohon, 
who walked around the sections giving counsel. It looked easy. 

The word came down for the first shot — a battery right. Shells 
rattled in the guns and the breech blocks clicked. Number 1 men 
were visibly trying to keep their hands away from the lanyards. 



18 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



"Pappy" looked almost like Napoleon, as he held up his hand, ready 
to slash out a reasonable chunk of air when the command came down. 
Number 1 men and gunners were sitting on the gun in positions of 
rigid attention. 

"Fire !" yelled "Pappy" in a voice audible in Beignon. 

The first gun cracked and apparently went into reverse for about 
fifteen yards. Gunner and Number One picked themselves up amid the 
derisive cheers of the non-firing members of the battery, who had 
assembled in the rear of the position. 

"Bang!" went the second gun, and "Red" Lowrance only stuck by 
grasping the sight shield. Number 1 was not so fortunate, and when 
he had returned to the piece he was still picking gravel from his ears. 
The third and fourth guns tossed their crews the same distance. 

When the dust had settled the gun crews obviously had concluded 
that distance was the better part of valor. All of them were well away 
from the gun for the second shot, the Number Ones standing on tiptoes 
outside of the wheel to reach the lanyard. This peeved "Pappy." 

"My Gawd!" he cried. "Get back on them guns. Ride them guns, 
man. Get back on 'em and tame 'em. My Gawd!" 

So the crews rode for the better part of the firing, which seemed 
to give the non-firing spectators an unholy pleasure. Rooting was 
strongest for "Red" Lowrance and Joe Yacullo, who were thrown 
farther and oftener than the rest. "Pappy's" admonitions were heard 
above the firing. 

"Are you in abatage ?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, get in it — get in it. My Gawd, man!" 

When "cease firing" was ordered, the gun crews hobbled home, leav- 
mg the second-string cannoneers to clean the guns, while they went in 
search of liniment and poultices. 

Entries in the battery diaries from this time until Christmas record 
the new routine of drills in the morning, stables all of the time, the 
introduction of horse meat as a component part of the mess. The 
institution of range guard began with the second day's fire, the duties 
of the guards being to gallop off into the country for a distance of 
twenty or thirty kilometers and close the roads for traffic during the 
firing. Our camp was visited by two Australian casuals who sought 
to enlighten us as to the causes and conduct of the war, and who 
were run ragged by "Chick" Buell in his office of corporal of the 
guard. The camp was quarantined. A few weeks later those who had 
quarantined it tried to remember why they had done it. Unable to 
figure out a good reason, the restrictions were lifted. 

Sergeant Hugh O. Jones now discovered that his quarters were 
too small, and the battery undertook to remove all of the boxes that 
had been collecting since its organization into a new quartermaster's 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 19 

office four blocks away. This having been accomplished on one 
Sunday, it was decided to move all the anvils and nails and clothes 
the next, because it was found that the ventilation was poor in the 
new office. Having restored his goods to their former place, Mr. 
Jones picked on the third Sunday for their transportation to another 
barracks, adjoining that of the regimental quartermaster sergeant, 
supposedly because the latter was an old friend with whom Jones 
loved to talk while pairing up size 44 shirts with 18 drawers. 

Sergeant "Danny" Elwell had been chosen to attend Officers' School 
at Saumur. His place was taken by "Dutch" Seller, who took maniacal 
pleasure in pulling the boys from their beds fifteen minutes before 
first call, with the injunction "Hop up!" Jack Vance had a severe 
attack of pneumonia and for a week or two hovered between life 
and death. He eventually recovered and joined the battery after 
Champagne. 

Christmas. Festivities commenced after morning stables and lasted 
until some time the following morning. In all the barracks there were 
piles of wrapping paper and excelsior ten feet high. Gifts from 
home included everything from joke books to hymn books — candy, 
chewing gum, cigars, shoes, necktie racks, tummy warmers, cootie 
powder, and cuff buttons . . . they were all on the list. Some- 
body got a pair of Paris garters. Herb Mooney drew a Sam Brown 
belt, which provoked some speculation as to what he had been writing 
the young lady. With real thrift he traded it the same evening to 
Lieutenant Stone for a Gillette and a pass to Rennes. Jim Weart 
and George Daugherty got four cans of monkey meat and a fit of 
apoplexy apiece. 

Christmas dinner was a large affair. Ross Brown worked all 
through Christmas Eve making doughnuts and pie, and "Scotty" Lang- 
lands brought out the jam he had been hiding for six weeks. And 
Harry Koulouris gave seconds (thirds to Linde) without even reach- 
ing for the cleaver. 

The menu was soup, turkey with chestnut dressing and cranberry 
sauce, celery, nuts, candy sent to the battery by Major and Mrs. 
Judah, apple pie, blackberry pie, doughnuts, and coffee. 

It was a big day not only for us. The German prisoners, who played 
the garbage pails daily for little delicacies not included on the 
French table d'hote, went away with gratitude in their hearts and tur- 
key in their tummies. George Daugherty, still sore over the can of 
monkey meat, was the only member of the battery who didn't split 
a wishbone with a Kraut. Instead, he backed away from the garbage 
can, exhibited his mess kit full of spare parts of turkey, and then, 
just as the German was reaching for it, knocked it into the can, with 
his famous epithet : 

"Deutschlander Schwein ! ! ! !" 



20 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



A meeting of the War College was held in the evening to work 
out certain reforms in the administration of the A. E. F. Measures 
involving the sale of alcoholics and the improvement of military eti- 
quette were discussed and voted upon. Everything was harmonious 
until it was discovered that "Bud" Ruling, Bob Barnes and Johnny 
Foster were all trying to play General Pershing at the same time. 
All refused to resign. Calm was restored by commissioning everyone 
present with the full rank of general. Many questions of importance 
were settled before reveille, among them, "What shall we do with the 
Buck Private?" 

The only untoward incident of Christmas Day, perhaps, was the 
detail voluntarily selected by "Nick" Richmond and Johnny Foster 
for the employment of a spare hour or two before dinner. This was 
the sanitary detail, which, up until now, had been considered a soft 
job. After being on sanitary detail for a month a private blushed as 
he was handed his pay. Possibly because they feared guard duty, 
Richmond and Foster presented themselves at the First Sergeant's 
office two weeks beforehand, and requested the sanitary detail for 
Christmas Day. 

But they had reckoned without the Christian spirit of the French 
Commandant, who spoiled everything by exempting the German pris- 
oners, who did the largest part of this work, from all labor on Christ- 
mas. In consequence, the provost sergeant spent a bad day look- 
ing for Nick and Johnny, who, it seems, had suddenly been stricken 
with paralysis in some obscure part of the camp. 

Three days after Christmas, one hundred men from the battery were 
ordered to Saint Nazaire to rustle four hundred and seventy wild 
horses for the regiment. Capt. Irving Odell was in charge. The trip 
to the coast was made by railroad, the detail arriving in Saint Nazaire 
late at night. 

Here "Pappy" Le Prohon, who had been assigned to remount work, 
met the battery and immediately took stock of missing buttons, 
reminding those who forgot to salute of a certain fort in eastern 
Kansas. He also took pains to inform one Neyens of certain circum- 
stances of his ancestry, heretofore unknown. 

The following morning the battery visited the remount station, and 
picked four horses apiece. The next job was to saddle one of them 
without getting kicked out of the corral, and to tie the remaining 
three so that they could be easily led. If the horses had been cured 
of a few little habits such as kicking, biting, rearing, tying themselves 
into fancy bows and then unwinding into a four-heel kick at the slight- 
est provocation, they would have been wonderful horses. To add to 
complications, some of the men had never been on a horse's back 
before. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 21 



Under the eye of "Pappy" Le Prohon, though, anything is possible, 
and before long we were frisking with our animals through the busi- 
ness streets of Saint Nazaire. Here the horses suddenly took excep- 
tion to the natives and became very Bolshevik, running up and down 
the sidewalks, aiming kicks at plate-glass windows, and managing to 
entangle the string horses around every telephone pole in town. For 
an hour the streets were full of panic-stricken natives, enthusiastic 
horses and feebly cursing members of the battery. With the assistance 
of the gendarmerie and about half the citizenry of Saint Nazaire, the 
parade was reformed and the march resumed. 

The fun began all over again ten minutes out of the city limits. The 
horses, attracted by green fields, jumped fences and ditches with an 
agilitv that was wonderful to behold, even in a horse. When one 
horse managed to get into a field of expensive vegetables, he proceeded 
to call his pals, and the round-up began all over again. "Jake" Anshel 
was the first to find himself sitting on a saddle in the middle of the 
road with nary a horse tied beneath the saddle. George Daugherty 
was another who seemed unable to exert authority over his mount. 
We unwrapped him from every telegraph pole on the road. Herb 
Mooney was sometimes with his team and sometimes in various creeks, 
bushes and barbed-wire fences that appeared along the road. Every 
time he collected and retied his horses he complained bitterly over 
the circumstance of his enlistment. 

"I did not know," he said as he sailed over the head of his horse 
for the eighth time, "that transfer to the flying corps could be made 
arbitrarily." 

By nightfall we had reached Saint Gildas de Bois, tired to death 
and colder than that. A thirteenth century monastery was used for 
billeting. Karl Geisendorfer picked on several young men for guard 
duty, who immediately assigned his motive to spite work of the most 
vicious sort. So Karl stood the guard himself. 

The following morning we were up at daybreak, fed and watered, 
and then were off. After getting the kinks out of their legs the horses 
again began to cut up, "Jake" Anshel, Don Coe and "Brick" Bristol 
being the principal sufferers. "Brick" lost one of his string horses, and 
when he dismounted and began to chase it the horse adopted a belliger- 
ent attitude and chased him. * 

For a few kilometers we followed a road beside the Loire canal, 
where we received a few ideas about the barge business. This is best 
conducted by the proprietor remaining in an easy chair on board the 
barge, smoking stogies, while a husky mule, assisted by the proprietor's 
wife, tows the barge down the canal. 

During the morning we passed through Redon, an interesting old 
town, filled with pretty mademoiselles and French and Japanese sol- 
diers. The presence of the latter, who gave us "Banzai" as we gal- 



22 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

loped through, was extensively discussed by the Hot Stove League 
on our return to Coetquidan, as foreshadowing Jap intervention on 
the Western front. 

Our destination on the second day was La Gacilly, a jerkwater town 
with no haylofts. In consequence, we slept in the schoolhouse. A dozen 
more black-and-blue members of the detail cried their hearts out 
because of Simon Legree Geisendorfer's selection of the guard. The 
remainder visited the town's one restaurant before going to bed. 

Now, it happened that Captain Odell had chosen the same place as 
a likely hash house, where he could satisfy his longing for ouefs, 
scrambled. The door burst from its hinges and admitted to the battery 
— a very ravenous battery — the picture of Captain Odell, whose aris- 
tocratic tendencies are well known, sitting before the fire in earnest 
conversation with an English officer touching upon the admirable 
discipline of the American forces. His oeuf s were on the fire. 

At the unexpected interruption he looked up and registered indigna- 
tion. It had been so quiet, and now at least fifty enlisted men were 
indicating a desire for "omelette, madame." 

"Yes," the English officer was heard to say, ever so politely, "it is 
a little noisy, perhaps; but still it is discipline, and that's something, 
isn't it ?" 

For reply. Captain Odell rose to his feet and rapped sharply on the 
table for attention. In a voice trembling with dignity he insisted upon 
silence, absolute silence. Then he spoke : 

"Men," he said, "I allow you to enter this place, now that you are 
here. But there will be silence. And I eat first, or out you go." 

"Hey, Madame, rush those oeufs. Shake it up. Make it snappy, old 
girl," drowned out the last part of the captain's speech. Three or four 
obstreperous persons yelled "I eat first" to their comrades, but nobody 
was ejected. Dignity had had its pound of flesh. 

Later in the evening Mr. Pryor, who had been refreshing himself 
with the contents of various canteens, serenaded several residents of 
the town after the manner of the ancient troubadours, and was invited 
into several of the best homes and further refreshed. 

In the morning the trip was resumed. After an adventurous fore- 
noon, the battery pulled into Coetquidan. Saddles and blankets were 
turned in, the horses (those that had not gone A. W. O. L. on the 
trip) were checked, and the battery returned to the barracks to count 
the packages that had accumulated in its absence. Ike Sawyer was 
our only casualty of the trip. The dead-shot accuracy of one of the 
ornery critters' heels had laid him low on the second day out, and 
he was sent to a hospital. 

The night of our return was New Year's Eve, and was celebrated 
in the traditional way. Weariness did not diminish our enthusiasm 
so much as it limited the party. Bedtime for most of the boys was 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 23 



8 o'clock. Those who slept in the first barracks were awakened on 
the passing of the old year into the new by Roy Golden, who was 
sitting up in bed practicing ventriloquism. Shoes proved to be a 
remarkable silencer to his talents. 

To begin the new year right, the officers threw an elaborate inspec- 
tion of personal equipment during the morning of January 1, after 
which those members of the battery who were not on stables visited 
the neighboring towns until dinner time. After the third real dinner 
in the space of thirty days, almost every one in the battery was ready 
to admit that "Red" Langlands was a pretty good guy, even if he was 
a mess sergeant. 

Just before dinner was served it was remembered that Dick Patton 
and his gang of night-riders, including "Bill" Ackerman, were ten 
miles out on the range doing guard duty. Those with him were Bob 
Barnes, Bill Button, Herb Mooney, Dick Evans and Alden Johnston, 
and we didn't want to see them starve. A rescue party was formed 
and food was carried out. 

Our fears proved to be groundless. From evidence scattered around 
near the pup tents of the guard, it became apparent that the battery 
New Year's Eve party had been a fizzle in comparison with that staged 
on the range. The new year was still being celebrated with such suc- 
cess that the relief party evidently thought it over and did not return 
until the next day. 

On the following day Pocket Testaments were presented to each 
man as a further expression of good will on the part of the officers. 
Ever since July of 1917 they had been carried by Sergeant Jones as 
battery property. Their presence in the battery was a deep secret, as 
they had been presented by the churches of Champaign for presenta- 
tion on the front. This Captain Benedict meant to do, until he was 
assigned to the Staff Officers' School. Whether Lieutenant Stone, 
dropping in on the New Year's party, decided that the time was ripe 
for their presentation, is hard to say. They were carried across the 
ocean in a box labeled "Miscellaneous Ordnance" and it may be that 
he was unwilling to tolerate this deception any longer. 

On January 5, ten days late, Santa gave us five new officers. They 
were First Lieutenants Walter M. Erlich, Ralph A. Kelly and Hugh 
Webster, and Second Lieutenants Walter A. Radford and Andrew J. 
Webster. Lieutenant A. J. Webster suffered from acute sensibilities 
and a desire to assert his rank. It was unfortunate that on the day 
after he had joined the battery he was required, in the discharge of his 
duties, to censor a letter written by Andy Gartner to a lady living in 
the States. To insure its original content reaching America safely, 
Gartner added this postscript to the letter: 

"If anything is cut out of this here letter, write and tell me the 
name of the censor, and I will punch him in the nose, the big stiff !" 



24 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

Lieutenant Webster crashed into the office, laid the letter on the 
first sergeant's desk, and pounded it fiercely. 

"Who," he demanded, "is this man Gartner who is going to punch 
me in the nose? I am going to give him the chance." 

Unwilling to lose out on a spectacle that promised to be really 
diverting, a dozen volunteers ran for Gartner. In the interim, some- 
one proposed seventy-fives at twenty paces with disinterested crews, 
but to the obvious disappointment of Jack Walsh and Bud Huling, 
the battery's most promising gunners, Lieutenant Webster would not 
hear of the suggestion. 

Gartner was brought, and insisted that there was no personal 
application to the message. Lieutenant Webster insisted upon satis- 
faction, which, to his notion, was an apology. Gartner was reluctant 
to do this, and the affair ended in a tie, just as the rooters were 
beginning to organize. 

Since our first range fire, early in December, the battery had been 
firing on an average of three times a week, drills and details filling 
up the holes in the program. When we fired, it was usually early 
in the morning, in order that we might simulate sneaking up on the 
enemy when he wasn't looking. It became a favorite pastime, when 
the battery was called at three in the morning, to delay dressing, 
hoping that it would rain and the party would be called off in con- 
sequence. One morning the order rescinding the fire came five min- 
utes after the drivers had stepped out into a downpour of rain to 
harness and hitch. When they came back to the barracks an hour or 
so later they were so sore that they just stayed out in the rain for 
spite, listening to the funny remarks the nice, dry cannoneers made 
on their appearance. 

Another morning a cold snap on the heels of a heavy fall of rain 
made a skating pond out of the entire country. We were required 
to go out and fire, when it was impossible for anyone to walk more 
than ten feet without doing a flip. The battery started, with the horses 
falling every few feet. Guns slipped off the graded road into the 
ditch, and cannoneers weren't any luckier. As a result of an unusually 
bad fall in the third section the second platoon was held up on the 
road. The impossibility of going much farther brought an order to 
turn around and do our firing from another part of the range. In 
the meantime, the first platoon had gone ahead, no one knew where, 
and the battery lost itself. This experience was often held up to us 
later as illustrative of the value of liaison. 

The funny part of the skating party was that Sergeant Byers had 
figured on pulling a genuine slicker. So, the night before all of this 
happened, he instructed the guard to awaken him at midnight, at 
which time he arose, collected his instruments and men, and set off 
for the proposed firing position of the battery. His plan was to 



::\\-nrzz\\-3=//_ 



:\\- 



V 















::^\:=z:zxv- 



y/Zl=z:vv 




A Bug's-Eye View of the War 25 

have all of his lines and instruments in position on the arrival of the 
battery. This would enable him to step up to the battery commander, 
and say, simply: "You may fire when you are ready, sir." 

So the lines were laid, and the detail men sat down in the snow and 
waited for the battery. Eight hours later they were still waiting, while 
Tucker and Payton, who had foxed the sergeant and remained in 
bed, were reaping all of the glory belonging to detail men at the new 
position. In the evening Byers was bawled out by every commander 
in the regiment for anticipating commands ; since which time he has 
been a model. 

Brigade problems followed. There was little to distinguish them 
from battery fire, excepting in their technical points. We usually dug 
a little deeper and walked a little farther and worked a little harder, 
that was all. 

On the 11th of January, Lieutenants Newton M. Kimball and 
George Wegner came to the battery. They remained with us through- 
out the war. Lieut. Clarence Skinner was assigned to us the same day. 

At about this time the bath book was established. A month or 
two before the insides were ripped out of an old French cuisine and 
a boiler was installed. If a private desired a bath, he got a pail (the 
most difficult part of the operation) and took it to the bath house as 
evidence of his good intentions. There it would be filled with water, 
sometimes hot and sometimes not, according to the whims of the 
gentleman assigned to heating of the water. This person would 
usually heat the boiler and then run over to his battery and tip off 
his friends. What was left was available for the regiment. 

Well, the party taking a bath usually and shiveringly undressed, 
although the bath would have been far more comfortable without 
going to this trouble. Then he stood, bird-like, first on one leg and then 
on the other, and bathed and jumped back into his clothes. Following 
which, he returned to the barracks, waited until a crowd had collected 
around the first sergeant's desk, and tried to look modest while he 
wrote his name down as having taken a bath. 

The report that half of the signatures were those of "ringers" 
caused the abolition of this straightforward custom before it had been 
in operation three weeks. The figures somehow didn't jibe with a 
corresponding record taken at the ice house, or rather, the bath house. 

The first intimation that training days were drawing to a close was 
the rumor, persistently circulated throughout the regiment, that we 
were to fire before a committee of inspecting generals on January 19, 
as a final try-out for the front. The morning of the great day found 
us on our toes, ready to show up the A. E. F. There was a little 
disappointment when we moved out on the range, fired a few shells 
for registration and began a barrage, only to be given "cease fire" 
after the first few shells. 



26 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



When the regiment did not start the following day for the firing 
line the Hot Stove League engaged in nightly discussion of the reason. 
Many theories were advanced, perhaps the most interesting being that 
we had been assigned for M. P. duty in Paris, for any number of 
reasons. Pete Bloom was supposed to have said so (the Chaplain 
started his first rumor nearly a year later) and Pete's word gave it the 
stamp of officialdom. 

The sense of inaction that resulted in the following week or two 
found its antidote in pillow fights between Barracks 1 and 3. These 
had their origin in winging the sergeant of the guard with a pillow 
as he walked through the barracks after taps to see that lights were 
out and windows open. Sergeants usually were tame stuff; so the 
first barracks, pining for excitement, held a meeting and decided to 
capture and occupy the third barracks on the following evening. 
This plan was reported to the third barracks by Sergeant Elwell, 
who wanted to see a few of the first barracks men on sick call, for 
various and personal reasons. 

Early the following evening, pillows were collected and packed 
until they were as hard as baseballs. The third barracks was busy at 
the same thing. The report that "Whiskey" Westbrook was caught 
pouring liquid Portland cement in his pillow was later denied by the 
third barracks battlers. 

Zero hour came, and "Red" Lowrance, with a blood-curdling 
whoop, led the charge. The third barracks shock troops had planned 
the defense in elaborate detail, and as the advanced elements of the 
first barracks men entered the enemy quarters they were greeted with 
many a lusty biff on the bean. 

For ten minutes the odds were even. Karl Geisendorfer, a third 
barracks leader, was put away. Blood gushed from Perc Matter's 
classic nose. "Red" swiped Nick Coss and sent him over three beds. 
French became glassy-eyed and dropped when Dave Hanks lifted 
one from the ground, and "Bud" Boyles was hit so hard and so often 
that he went on quarters for another three months. 

In the meantime, the first barracks braves were getting plenty. 
George Savage was tapped just as he was entering the barracks and 
went down for the count. The perfidious Elwell, who had warned 
the third barracks of the attack, and who had come over as a spec- 
tator, went back as a casualty. Tommy Owens, Ben Sheetz and Don 
McGinnis were tossed out, one by one. "Red" ordered a retreat and 
remained behind to cover it. The entire barracks concentrated on 
"Red" and almost killed him before he could fight his way out. 

The victorious raspberry was tendered to the camp by the third 
barracks until late in the night. 

The third barracks, thirsting for blood, swooped down on the first 
the next night. But the defenders had been practicing a few swings 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 27 



and were ready. Kline Gray was caught in the gauntlet at the door 
and knocked cold. Nick Richmond pounded on Chet Bailey's head 
until it rang like a Chinese gong. Addie Moore claims to have gone 
through the barracks, but it was on his hands and knees, looking for 
the nearest exit. Cush Pryor lost his new tooth. The third barracks 
beat a retreat, dragging Bill Ackerman in a litter. 

The defenders piled up the pillows captured as trophies, swept up 
the wool stuffing, set up the stoves again and advertised the sweetness 
of revenge until the officer of the day threatened to arrest the entire 
battery. 

In the days that followed these Ostermoor scrimmages there was 
work twenty-six hours a day, with inspections under full pack filling 
up the rest of the time. It became certain that the battery was leaving 
for the front. We began to get gas mask drill, and passed through 
a gas-filled dug-out to get used to the sensation. We simulated load- 
ing carriages on flat cars by staking out rectangular patches of grass 
and playing that they represented the Paris-New Orleans limited on its 
way to the front. Barrack bags were packed, and cartons of cigarettes 
were tucked away in them for use at the front. So were the socks 
and extra underwear that we never saw again. 

On February 10 we began moving battery equipment to Guer to 
be loaded on freight cars. Volunteers were called for, and the work 
went on until 4 o'clock on the morning of the 11th. Barrack bags 
were taken to Guer the same morning to be sent to the Divisional 
area. In the afternoon a stiff hike with full equipment was taken. 
The men were so tired on their return that they flopped into bed with- 
out removing their clothes. It began to look like war. 

On the 16th the last of the battery baggage was loaded, and with 
tear-dimmed eyes we bade Corporal Buell, McFarland, Karlstrom, 
Sutton and Hug farewell. They were detailed to escort our equipment 
to Rolampont. 

We had been preparing to leave for weeks and were still in Coet- 
quidan. All kinds of quarantines had been established, and all kinds 
of rumors had gone the rounds. On the 17th it became known that 
we were leaving the following morning, and everybody made last 
preparations. We were the only battery left in camp, and the final 
policing was left to our charge. 

The guardhouse was shined up as a final touch, and an impromptu 
farewell party to ourselves was pulled at the officers' mess. "Porch" 
McMillan banged out some ragtime, Clarence Soderlund and Carroll 
French tickled out some classics, and everybody else foxy-trotted and 
tried to make all the noise possible. Speeches were made by "Cush" 
Pryor and Bob Barnes, and were applauded wildly. We went to bed 
in a state of solemn elation. We were going to pay our first install- 
ment to M. Lafavette. 



28 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



The next day was Monday, the 18th. Reveille rolled us out at 3. 
Harry Koulouris and Joe had doughnuts ready, in return for which 
we had to pack what was left of the kitchen equipment. Harnessing 
and hitching was accomplished in record time, rolls and packs were 
made, and we said good-by to Coetquidan. The work of loading 
horses and equipment was accomplished in spite of the hindrance of 
a number of officers, twenty-six men were assigned to each box car, 
Y. M. C. A. officials distributed coffee and sandwiches without asking 
a cent for them, and we were off. The time of departure from Guer 
was half past ten in the morning. 

Once more we were piled into freight cars — this time, one for every 
twenty-six men. Our trip from Saint Nazaire had given us a few 
pointers on travel, and we managed to make ourselves comfortable. 
In a few minutes tables were rigged up in the cars and canned beans 
were sizzling in a mess kit over a half a dozen candles. We waved 
tin hats out the windows and wore our gas masks through the tunnels 
and yelled at everybody. On the first night we sang ourselves to sleep 
with the "Homesickness Blues." 

H we talked about the front at all, it was only to speculate on our 
probable destination. For weeks we had been "fed up" on the front. 
Lectures that attended our departure from Coetquidan were full of 
blood-curdUng probabilities. We would detrain under shell fire. We 
would detrain in a gas cloud. We wouldn't detrain at all, because the 
Germans, seeing us first, would send the train heavenward and us 
somewhere else, with a few well-directed forty-twos. All were theories 
that had been talked over time and again while putting some more 
wood on the little Frog stove in Coetquidan. 

So the train slipped along the Seine and the Moselle, and we occu- 
pied ourselves tossing bis-kwee and corned Bill to the kids that yelled 
for it at every crossing. We were taking the Rennes-La Val-Chartres 
route to Versailles, and from there to the Luneville front through 
Troyes. At every stop the incorrigibles would slide from the train 
to the station buvette and return with a mysterious article that might 
have been a bottle under their coats. A crap game flourished in two 
or three of the cars, from which "Vic" Stangel derived great profit. 
A few still interested themselves in scenery, the rest strained their 
eyes in the hope of having the rum and coffee ravitaillement show up 
around the next bend. 

On the third morning we were awakened at daylight and told to 
step along pronto, that we were pulling in. We looked about for the 
manifestations of death and glory. A plane had made a forced landing 
near the track. Hooray ! The cars were treated to the news by every- 
one talking at once, that this bird had been shot down five minutes 
earlier and that there was a dead man in the cockpit. A ruined build- 
ing or two sailed by and caused great enthusiasm, which was dimin- 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 29 



ished a little by the appearance of the wooden crosses that were becom- 
ing more frequent, it seemed, as the train rolled along. All were 
marked with the French cocarde of red, white and blue, which settled 
the fact that they were aviators who had fallen. As more "aviators' " 
graves appeared, the composite opinion of the battery was: 

"Gosh ! Wasn't I lucky when I got turned down for aviation !" 

Our morbid discussion of an aviator's chances ended when a train- 
man explained that the cocarde was the official French marking for 
all graves, and that these were infantrymen who had fallen in 1914. 

The train stopped at Blaineville and waited for the Paris-Nancy 
express. Here a rumpety-boom-boom that we had heard since mid- 
night, and attributed to the flat wheels of the train, revived our tender 
little hopes of getting blown to pieces before we could retaliate. We 
conveyed this pleasant hunch to Harry Koulouris and "Alooch" Sum- 
mers, and in this spirit we pulled into Luneville at 1 o'clock in the 
afternoon. There was nary a shell on our arrival. There was a faint 
odor of garlic in the air, a sure indication of mustard gas, and some 
gas masks went to the alert. Our fears were relieved, however, when 
we discovered that it was caused by the conversation of a group of 
Italian soldiers who had just had dinner. 

We unloaded with ramps, harnessed and hitched, and marched to 
the Chateau Stanislaus, one of the principal buildings of the town. 
Our guns were parked on the grounds of the castle, and the horses 
put into the stone stables adjoining it; we were tucked into two of 
the attic rooms. 

When we had time to look into local history, we learned that at 
the partition of Poland, more years ago than we could remember. 
King Stanislaus had locked up his flat in Warsaw and moved his 
court to Luneville, there being no war here then. The castle in which 
we were billeted was built to receive the king and his court. Near it 
was the cathedral he had erected at the same time. 

The king's architectural tastes were perfect, except in the matter 
of attics. For one thing, he never thought to install stoves in them, 
probably because he was so het up over the subject of ventilation, of 
which there was plenty. Air came from everywhere — through the 
roof, the walls, the floor — and all of it was cold. There were a 
number of Katzenjammer-castle features not to be overlooked. One 
was the carpenters' failure to cover certain holes in the floor that 
communicated with the basement, six stories below. It became an 
indoor sport to drop some article belonging to the first sergeant into 
these holes, and time its journey to the basement. Someone suggested 
that we drop the first sergeant in, along with his equipment ; and this 
undoubtedly should have been done. A rickety stairway connected 
with the roof, from which we were able to get a panoramic view of 
the bombardment, which was still taking place. It was not long before 



30 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

the battery roster was carved into the balustrades along with "J^^i^ 
Baptiste Le Blanc, Umpty-ump Chasseurs, 1819," and the names of 
other unsung heroes. 

On our first evening in Luneville, we were given passes until 7:45. 
Bier Terribles were discovered ten minutes later. These were goldfish 
globes, mounted on a glass leg and filled with the amber fluid — eighty 
centimes the copy. To operate one required the use of both hands, 
and to drink more than three was the liquiferous equivalent of being 
drowned. 

Luneville — or, as it was Americanized, Looneyville — was a spooky 
place at night, dark and silent. A Lorraine cross on every other house 
indicated the places so marked as having bomb-proof cellars, a disturb- 
ing fact in itself. Here and there the blue letters C-A-F-E were cut into 
the black curtains that held back the light, and in these places artillery- 
men and doughboys assembled, bought each other beer, and assured one 
another that the 165th and 166th Infantry were the best in France, 
and that the 149th Artillery had no parallel anywhere. After we had 
been on the front for a few months, the truth of this statement became 
apparent to the world. 

In the days that passed before the regiment left for the front, we 
sought information, and got it in great gobs. We learned that one 
battery had participated in the bombardment which attended our 
arrival and had lost only two men. This was unbelievably tame, but 
we hoped for better averages. We hated to be disillusioned, and set 
our dead down as eight or ten in the first combat, the better to uphold 
the gloomy prophecies of the Hot Stove League. 

Papers came in, carrying the result of the bombardment we had 
heard : 700 prisoners and two trench systems. This thrilled us because 
we regarded ourselves as participants, being on the spot, so to speak. 
Anti-aircraft barrages, fired from the town, added to our thrills, and 
we just bet that Kraut was scared to death with all that iron whizzing 
around him. 

Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays were market days, the market 
being our stables. Reveille was set at 5 :50 on these mornings, and by 
the time the local Woolworths arrived with their wheelbarrows filled 
full of everything salable, from Swiss cheese to union suits, we 
usually had the stables shined up for the event. 

But even these events didn't make our attic floor any softer for 
sleeping purposes. One day the French government deposited one 
hundred beautiful mattresses in the chapel of the castle. It was a hard 
job to transfer them to the attic. It had to be done under cover of 
darkness and the stairways were steep and winding. But transferred 
they were, and that night we slept. 

Our repose was short, however. On the following morning the 
French discovered the theft of the mattresses, which apparently were 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 31 



for officers' use. They went through the castle like a vacuum cleaner, 
following the feathered trail until it led to our humble quarters. Here 
there was a big pow-wow, involving in the end half a dozen field mar- 
shals and innumerable Hague treaties, and the mattresses were restored 
to the French. In the parley we mentioned the name of Lafayette 
several times and Vived la France, with the result that diplomatic 
relations were restored with the mattresses. 

Sometimes, when Porch Climber offered stew, we dined out. Res- 
taurants were not permitted to sell food to the Americaine, so the 
dinner was a rather progressive affair. First we went to the Char- 
cuterie and bought a slice of ham, then to the epicerie for eggs ; some- 
where else for confiture, to the boulangerie for bread, and finally, to 
a private residence with all of the aforementioned articles for dinner. 
A meal out usually required four hours and fifty francs. 

War 

On the 24th of February Lieutenant Stone went to the front 
to pick out a position, and everything became mysterious. On 
the 25th the work of packing up began in anticipation of leaving 
in the morning. Many letters were written and there were touch- 
ing instances of farewell on the part of those slated to go. 

Fifty men were selected from the battery for the first go at Kaiser 
Bill. They were the four gun crews, detail men, and engineers. It 
was a stuck-up gang. Their condescension was awful and gloomy to 
those who remained behind. Final inspection of gas masks and helmets 
was made, and at half past ten the battery began its march to the 
front. At two o'clock, after a long march over a camouflaged road, 
we reached La Neuveville aux Bois, our destination. 

This battered little village never boasted, in peace times, more than 
two or three hundred inhabitants. It lay four kilos from the front 
lines. French batteries were in position on all sides of it and one in 
the town itself. The town was dilapidated and dirty and full of rats. 
So were our billets. Chicken wire, tacked on wooden frames, made 
good beds. In some billets there were fireplaces, and doors and win- 
dow sills made good fires. When they gave out, we ripped up parts 
of the floor not absolutely essential to getting around. 

On our installation, a brisk little card game started up, during the 
course of which the bombardment was resumed. Having read some- 
where that shelling is contemptuously regarded by soldiers, we shiv- 
ered and played on with wonderful four-flush. With another gray 
hair sprouting every minute and with our chairs hunched up to the 
table so that our knees might knock unobserved, we played until the 
shelling was over. In the morning we learned that the shells had 
landed near Manonviller, a couple of kilos away. 



32 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

We jumped into the work of building positions with a heavy crash, 
shortly after daylight. Abandoned French positions were picked as 
a likely spot, without figuring out why the French had abandoned. 
We weren't long finding out. 

The first and principal reason was that they couldn't stay there any 
longer. The second was that the French are gifted with intelligence ; 
and the third probably was that they wanted to see some fun when 
the Americans moved in. We fooled 'em on th:- point, however. We 
didn't move in. We slid in. 

In most places the mud filling the gun pits and communication 
trenches was three feet deep. Black, gooey, gluey mud. But it was 
the front, and to be expected. This thought imparted pep, and we 
commenced scooping out the positions. In three days the mud wasn't 
more than two feet and eleven inches deep. Our work was beginning 
to count for something. In a year or so we could keep out of it by 
wearing knee boots. 

In the midst of all this progress it rained, and rained hard; and 
when we began looking for our positions we had to take soundings 
to find out where they used to be. Trucks of concrete and steel beams 
for the abris began to arrive. The smallest piece of building equip- 
ment we had weighed a ton, and was carried by hand not less than 
a couple of thousand yards. To add to our many pleasures, it snowed 
and rained alternately, every day. Despite conditions, the men worked 
like horses, trying to prepare the position by Sunday, which was set 
for our first fire. 

After five days of this the mud was deeper than it ever had been. 
Somebody must have accidentally struck water. The uselessness of 
continuing became apparent, and a dry spot in the fringe of a forest, 
part of the Foret de Parroy, was picked for future operations. Five 
days gone to the bow-wows. Entries in the diaries of the labor party 
all recorded that the front wasn't all it was cracked up to be. 

On Sunday morning the French gave a little party to the Germans, 
who reciprocated handsomely. For a few hours before daylight guns 
were cracking on every side. The ground rocked with the explosions 
and the air sizzled with shell. The entire front was ablaze with 
jumping flashes that threw their reflections on the clouds in a wide, 
flickering light that was visible for miles. 

After taking in the spectacle for a few minutes we piled back to 
bed. The wearing work we had been through, and the prospect of 
more of it in the morning, took some of the excitement out of us. 
Before morning the bombardment had died down until only an occa- 
sional burst could be heard far away. 

The new position in the woods was easily worked, as compared with 
the one we had abandoned. A narrow-gauge railway running near it 



'K«ilK»^S* 




A Bug's-Eye View of the War 33 

sometimes drew shell fire, but never to a disturbing extent. A French 
canteen a few hundred yards away sold Pinard, which Joe Bag pre- 
pared by heating and adding sugar. Portable barracks were erected, 
and, considering circumstances, we were comfortable. 

In a few days gun pits were completed and abris and communica- 
tion trenches begun. Twelve of the cannoneers were detached daily 
for service with the 24th Battery of the 252nd French Artillery, which 
had positions on our right. Their duties were to work the guns under 
the supervision of the French, and it was here that Battery F's unoffi- 
cial first shot was pegged at a German kitchen on March 4. There 
will always be a controversy over who fired it, it being Joe Yacullo's 
privilege and Johnny Foster's opportunity, when he jerked the lanyard 
on the second piece ten seconds ahead of time. Both the first and 
second guns cracked simultaneously. 

We were the first American soldiers these French had ever seen, and 
their treatment of us at the French battery was like the kind you read 
about. There was Leon Canis, "off the stage" a croupier at Monte 
Carlo, who invited everybody down after the war to see how the 
roulette wheels worked; Corporal "Pomme de Terre," in charge of 
the Pinard issue, whose friendship was especially cultivated in con- 
sequence of his duties ; and a hundred other Frenchies, all heroes of 
Verdun and the Marne, whose one concern seemed to be the promo- 
tion of the entente cordiale and plent-ent-y cordial. 

In return, our cannoneers showed the veterans how to make a 75 
eat out of their hands, sending them to the dugouts in a hurry ever) 
time a long- fused shell was fired from the gun pit. On his first shot, 
Cush Pryor broke the lanyard and continued firing by pulling back 
the hammer with his fingers, an astonishing performance to the French. 

In the meantime, reconnaisance parties were going out, giving the 
trenches the once-over. Buck Somers accompanied the first party of 
officers and returned with a harrowing story of blood and barbed 
wire. Later, Earl Thomas and Addie Moore had occasion to visit 
Observatory R, K., and were shelled by every gun on the German 
side, according to Tommie, who beat the last volley back by three 
jumps. Buck Byers was given a week's rations and a telescope and 
assigned to R. J. observatory to spot the Kaiser in his weekly distribu- 
tion of Iron Crosses. 

Three or four days later Colonel Reilly visited the observatory. The 
visit was delightfully informal on the part of both Buck and the 
Colonel, the latter coming up without previous notification and finding 
Buck in his informal costume of a kepi and leather jerkin. Colonel 
Reilly's conception of Hell is a place where everybody runs around in 
overseas hats and leather jerkins, so for a little while thereafter Buck 
was a buck. 

On March 6 our guns were brought up from Luneville and put into 



34 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



position. A thousand rounds of ammunition was dumped along the 
road, and we were ready to declare war. 

On Thursday, March 7, at 10 :20 a. m., the battery fired its first shot 
into the German lines. All of the men at the front ganged up back 
of the gun pits to send their hoorays and whoop-ees after the shell. 
The first piece was the first to fire . . . and the shell case was preserved 
and later sent to President James of the University of Illinois. After 
seventy-five shots "cease firing" was given. 

For a few moments we sat aroimd, waiting for retaliation. There 
was no answer from the German lines, and our cockiness grew. We 
were still talking about the one-sidedness of it all, early in the after- 
noon, and pitying the Germans, when "s-s-s-s blooey-BAM ! ! !" a 
shell landed a hundred feet or more in front of the battery. It was 
followed by another, and another. Perhaps the eye was deceived, but 
they appeared to be coming closer. Nobody moved. Nobody said a 
word. Everybody was in a kneeling position in the gun pits, peeking 
over the top at three fresh shell craters, and feeling as big, physically, 
as the Wool worth Building. 

Whang ! ! ! The Germans were starting another batter}- right. 
Lieutenant Erlich was in charge of the battery. At the first shell 
he manifested some signs of uneasiness, and appeared to be having 
some trouble with the trees. But if he could have been entered in the 
Olympic games at the precise second that the third one hit he would 
have won a bosom of medals and copped all the events. The distance 
from the gun pits to the barracks was approximately one hundred 
yards, with underbrush and barbed-wire hurdles every five feet. He 
did it in nothing flat, turning only once in his dash to Luneville to make 
a megaphone out of his hands and order the men to take shelter. 

After lazily sending over twenty-five shells, which were probably 
intended for the railroad, the Germans knocked off and called it a 
day, and the battery emerged from holes and ditches and trees, to 
swap stories of narrow escapes. 

On Saturday, a time H. E. burst near the barracks, giving Jack 
Bayless and Bill Ackerman, standing a few feet away, another thrill ; 
from that time on we were left pretty much alone. 

Digging, camouflaging and registration and tit-for-tat firing con- 
tinued daily. Frequently Colonel Reilly would drop around to see what 
progress had been made and there would be a wild jump for blouses, 
gas masks and helmets. A delivery system for Pinard was established. 
Telephones were installed at the barracks and the guns, and deep, 
mysterious stuff was whispered over the wires by "Fanny" Coe, 
"Ragged Ruth" Bailey and "Pearl" Westbrook, the telephone girls. 
Thus : "Mrs. O'Leary is sick in bed with the pip," over the telephone, 
might mean anything from "The first piece is out of order" to "Have 
you got any Pinard over at the P. C.?" 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 35 

Two or three times a week Major Thouverey and Lieutenant Varin, 
battalion officers of the 252nd French Artillery, with whom we were 
in liaison in support of French infantry, would visit the position and 
gloomily shake their heads over the appearance of our abris. 

"Beaucoup traverse — beaucoup," and then, by imitating a bombard- 
ment and going through a pantomime of rafters caving in and dead 
men being carried out, they signified their ideas of American construc- 
tion. 

In spite of these pleasant predictions, our fortifications began to 
look good. During a spell of good weather that lasted almost two 
weeks, the dug-outs and zig-zag communications came along in a 
hurry. Rumors were flying thick and fast. A concentration of German 
troops had been reported, and an offensive was being fixed up for our 
sector early in March. First, the Germans would cut the wire that was 
piled up along the Paris-Strasbourg railway ; this was strengthened 
by Johnnie and Buck Byers, who reported that the wire was being 
torn down by the enemy artillery. Then, the Uhlans were coming 
down the track, and there would be hell popping. 

Our machine guns were mounted along the roads and the battery 
had insomnia for three or four nights waiting for the attack; but the 
Uhlans must have learned of the presence of the 42nd Division, for 
it never came off. 

There were three new rumors for every one that foozled out. Most 
of them were associated with big events. General Pershing visited the 
division, and said (according to John Snowhook, who couldn't say 
where he got his information, because Colonel Reilly would get sore 
if he was quoted) : 

"Where is the 149th U. S. Field Artillery?" 

Well, Lieut.-Col. Smith gave the General a snappy salute, and says : 

"They're at the front, sir." 

"What ! ! !" shrieked Pershing. "What are they doing there? Who 
sent 'em there? Bring 'em back, toot sweet. I'm not going to have 
my crack regiment of artillery shot up on no Looneyville front. I've 
got something better for them." 

Out of which grew the rumor that we were going home to the 
States, to show the National Army how to fire a 75. We were all to 
be commissioned there. 

Without this hope to look forward to, we might have developed 
shell shock in the first three weeks. The work was hard, and long. 
If we had any spare time we spent it in the old Field Artillery 
recreation of moving two or three thousand shells somewhere, and 
carrying them back the same day. There was little sleep and less food. 
The ration cart came up every day, loaded to the top with six or eight 
candles, a couple of sacks of what was supposed to be flour, but which 
turned out to be feed tossed on by mistake, shoe polish, and, once in 



36 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

a long, long while, a chunk of meat, also probably thrown on by- 
some happy chance. 

With these articles, Eddie Hilliard and Joe Bag usually managed 
to make a meal, laying out the rations for exhibit. If you weren't 
too hungry, you could laugh. 

Toward the middle of March, during our third week at the front, 
things began to liven up. Croix de Guerre regiments were going in, 
more every day; big guns were being pulled up; our firing became 
more frequent. 

The report spread that we were going to shake 'em loose with a 
mighty barrage on J Day H hour. Everything became tense. Officers 
gumshoed here and there, whispering and adding up long columns of 
figures. There were rumors of spies sneaking through the sector. The 
telephone girls became more mysterious than ever. Ammunition kept 
piling up beside the guns. 

On the morning of March 20 we were given the alarm a little after 
midnight. We scurried and slid down to the guns and stood to. After 
three or four hours of waiting we went back to bed, still keyed up. 
Something big had been averted. 

At 7 o'clock in the evening of the same day we received another 
battery attention. Lieutenant Stone emerged from somewhere and 
announced that it was J Day, and that it would be H Hour in forty- 
five minutes. 

In fifteen minutes we were prepared. Shells were arranged in lay- 
ers, fuses were out, gas masks were adjusted, helmets were nervously 
patted over so that more protection was given the right eye. We had 
half an hour to familiarize ourselves with the method of fire and to 
talk over the probable outcome of the attack. 

Lieutenant Stone waited at the telephone for the order to fire. At 
7:45 it came down, and a second later the air was ripped apart by a 
couple of hundred thousand shells all going one way. Everything was 
racket and confusion. The officers yelled at the men above the crack- 
ing of the guns, and the men yelled back without taking time out. 
Shells stuck in the bore and misfired. The aiming stake light of the 
first piece was knocked out by the violence of the first few moments' 
fire ; and Cush Pryor held a pocket flash in its place. 

Guns that we never dreamed were anywhere around began popping 
in back of us, and on each side. Every crack and crevice of sound 
was filled with the clatter of machine gun and rifle fire. The sound 
of incoming shells could occasionally be distinguished above the uproar, 
and we could see the smoke from their explosions in the field ahead. 

After the first few minutes of fire the battery stabilized itself, and 
method emerged from confusion. Among the men the flurry of the 
attack was over. The officers, having less to do and more respon- 
sibility for what was going on, were more excited. They ran .along 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 37 



the gun pits, yelling orders that had been executed at the start, and 
holding a big pow-wow in every pit. 
"Is there (bang!) a shell in that gun?" 
"Yes, sir." (Bang! bang!) 
"Well (bing!), put another (bang!) one in it." 
"For God's sake (crack-bang!), Nahowski, why don't you fire?" 
"My aiming stake is out." (Bang!) 
"Fire anyway." (Rumpety-tump boom!) 

After half an hour's fire we were winding up our accompanying 
barrage when the telephone tinkled and the officers came charging 
down to the gun pits with an order for another barrage. 
"Gouteleine barrage ! Gouteleine barrage ! ! " 
The guns were relaid in a second. We began sending over the new 
barrage, wondering what was up. The guns began to sizzle, and the 
paint melted with the heat and trickled off the tube. Fearing that 
they might blow up, Lieutenant Stone ordered the crews, with the 
exception of gunner and one, from the pits. "Cease firing" was given 
at 9:30, and the men cleaned the guns and went to bed. We slept 
in the dugouts for the first time — and the last. 

In the morning we were called to the guns just before daybreak. 
The Germans had counter-attacked, and for half an hour we zipped 
over another barrage. 

On the same morning we became soldiers. Hitherto we had been 
kidding the public, mere civilians running around in khaki. Here's 
how we did the trick: 

Colonel Reilly called up Lieutenant Stone on the morning after 
the attack. After the customary exchange of compliments he said 
(according to Fanny Coe, who was on the board) : 
"Were you shelled last night, Lieutenant?" 
"We got a few," replied Lieutenant Stone. 
"Any gas?" 
"Some." 

"Very well. You may tell your men that they are soldiers now. 
They have participated in a good-sized attack and are no longer 
civilians." 

The good news spread, and all morning we were experiencing the 
thrill that comes once in a lifetime. The drivers became civilians 
from that time on. 

We were ordered back to Luneville on the same morning to pro- 
ceed, as we thought, to a rest camp, where we would be issued new 
British uniforms and seven-day leaves. The day was spent in policing 
the positions and fussing up around the kitchen. Late in the after- 
noon of March 21 the carriages and escort wagons rattled up, the 
caissons were filled, and with our hearts full of gratitude for some 



38 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



general's kindness we pulled out of the Luneville sector, arriving in 
town at midnight. 

The guns were parked, there was a midnight speech by Lieutenant 
Stone that took us pretty nearly over our history, and we piled into 
the old chateau attic and slept as we had never done before. 

We rested up for a day, and the next morning set out for Rolam- 
pont, the divisional area. Early in the afternoon we reached our 
first day's destination, Haudonville, known to the soldiers as Hoodlums- 
ville, probably because of its associations. On the day following an 
"As you were" came down, and we were ordered to hold ourselves 
in readiness for another front. 

Here followed a week of drills and simulated starts, mixed up with 
soccer, swimming, and rambles around the country, which is one of 
the most devastated parts of France. Our opponents for the Hoodlums- 
ville Soccer Championship were some French who lived in a chateau 
near our haylofts. We held one contest on the grounds of the well- 
shot-up chateau of Francois de Montmorency, Due de Lumbourc, 
which nearly ended in a battle, due to Scotty Langland's persistence 
in kicking one French soldat in the eye. 

Fifteen minutes' walk from the billets led to Gerbeviller, a pile of 
brick dust that had once been a town. The Germans destroyed it in 
1914 because of the failure of the inhabitants to pay an indemnity 
on time. Their method of destruction would make the McNamara 
brothers sick with envy. Not a stone was left standing in the entire 
town. Statues were mutilated and defaced. One hundred and four 
civilians were lined up and shot, some of them women and children. 
We began to understand why we were at war. 

On the morning of March 27, after half a dozen false starts, we 
packed up and started back to the front. Our last hope for a rest 
camp died when we swung off the Rolampont road a few kilometers 
out and headed for Baccarat. All the rumors of Cambrai and Verdun 
were left at the same crossroad. After languishing in a beer town 
for a week, without fifteen centimes in the battery bank roll, we were 
paid before we left. 

Our first stop was Fontenoy la Toute, which we reached in a driving 
rain. The next day was Easter Sunday, and most of the battery went to 
church. Early in the afternoon we were off again, reaching Pneu- 
monia Hill just before sundown. This was to be our horse line. 

Camp de Coetquidan has been mentioned in this record as the 
longest and muddiest hill in France. Considering Pneumonia Hill, 
there is room for argument. There was mud everywhere, and the 
worst feature of it was that it looked solid and wasn't. The horses 
wallowed in it, bellies under. The men went to pull the horses out 
and sank in to their waists. Despite conditions, the caissons were 
pulled into a patch of pine trees and the men began making the place 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 39 



habitable. The guns and those selected for the front went to the 
new positions ten kilometers farther on. 

Those who remained behind had just crawled into their shelter 
tents when a cold, heavy rain began to patter down. In ten minutes 
it was a downpour, and in twenty-five a flood. Two or three members 
of the battery had built hammocks, which presently became bathtubs. 
The rest had forgotten to build drainage ditches around their tents, 
and were in the same fix. Everyone was drenched, cold and miserable. 
We cheered ourselves by crying sassy remarks at one another, and 
when Lieutenant Webster interfered, transferring our affections to 
him. The principals in this exchange of repartee were "Toadie" 
Groves and Lieutenant Webster. This information is given here 
because Lieutenant Webster was very anxious, up to the moment 
when he left for the States, to find out who the lowbrow was. His 
Sam-Browne-Beltish remarks at the time restored our humor and kept 
many from suicide. 

Reherrey 

In the meantime the firing battery was progressing toward what 
was the quietest front on the line. Lieutenant Erlich was gum- 
shoeing ahead, cautioning the men against whispering while we 
were yet six kilometers from the trenches. After Count Nahowski's 
section had been lost and found and the Chariot du Pare pulled out of 
its sixth ditch, we pulled into position a little distance outside the 
village of Reherrey, into ready-made gun pits. The pieces were laid 
and the firing battery went to bed. 

Reherrey was a little red- roofed village tucked away in the foot- 
hills of the Vosges. It was inhabited by French and American troops 
and a few nervy civilians who preferred an occasional H. E. to the 
inconvenience of moving to a safer part of France. It lay 6,000 meters 
from the first line. 

Whenever we gave a little party to the Germans or anticipated a 
little surprise for us, the women and kids were piled in a hayrick for 
a visit to second cousins and mothers-in-law back in the S. O. S. 
But not often. Except for the splatter of a few Chau-chaus and 
machine guns on a still night, and a far-away boom once in a while 
during the day, the little front was as quiet as an Evanston cemetery 
for a long time after our occupancy. 

We finally reached the conclusion that the German front in this 
sector was operated by a little old man who had been incapacitated 
for service on an active front and was given the Reherrey sector in 
order that he might be spared from idleness in his old age. An esti- 
mate of what the old gentleman's daily duties were led us to the con- 
clusion that he was the busiest man in Europe, with the possible 
exception of Frenchy Monast. 

His daily program, as we figured it out, took in the following: 



40 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Daybreak — Blow first call ; run up and down the trenches and fire 
a few 77s. Breakfast. Send up the balloons; run down to the first 
line and fire a few machine guns; back to the hangar and take the 
1870 model Fokker out for a ride over the trenches; send over the 
propaganda balloons. Dinner — blood sausage and rye bread. 

In the afternoon he had a little more leisure, and possibly slept. 
Dick Patton saw him rolling his tennis court one afternoon, and we 
zipped at him for an hour or so with shrapnel ; but he was out of 
range. Sometimes he would spend the afternoon milking the old cow 
that hung around No Man's Land, or spading up around his sugar 
beet patch. 

But at night he didn't have a minute to himself. He tore up and 
down the line, firing starshells here, a rocket or two there, and stop- 
ping just long enough to fire a belt of machine gun ammunition along 
the way. The flares were often so far apart that we wondered how 
on earth the old man got around, until one of our observers reported 
that he had seen him on a motorcycle, which explained everything. 

But the old man had one curse — drink. And it was drink that 
finally brought about his downfall. 

On one of his Sunday leaves, to Metz, just after pay day, he killed 
half a dozen bottles of liquid rebellion and came home and touched 
off every gun in the sector. Not satisfied with waking everybody up, 
he sat up until morning and cut the rope on the observation balloon. 
The balloon sailed over our heads and everybody in the sector took 
time out for target practice. 

The German government fired the old boy over to the Russian 
front the minute the story of the balloon got out, and his place was 
taken by a younger man, who began to play hob from the outset. 
One night he became very Bolsheviki because he wasn't getting his 
rations regularly. So what does he do but sneak over to an Iowa 
kitchen and capture a side of beef and a kitchen cop to cook his 
meals. The Iowa boys went back for their K. P. every night for two 
or three weeks, but they never found out where he slept. 

Our speculations concerning the old man and his successor served 
to pass away the time, but we got little comfort out of the "one-man 
German army" when we began looking over our positions. They were 
built in 1914, and we knew that the Germans knew them better than 
we did and could destroy them any time we got rambunctious. This 
we intended to do, so we forestalled their charitable intentions by 
looking for new positions. 

A hill of solid rock lying in front of the guns was selected and 
work commenced. A good deal of sapping was necessary, so John 
Stovich and all of the men who could be spared from the horse 
lines started to construct a little Gibraltar. The work continued all 
of the time we were at Reherrey and, incidentally, was never finished. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 41 



It was back-breaking at the start. Chicken-wire camouflage had 
been stretched over the proposed position at a height of five feet from 
the ground, and all of us became round-shouldered in the first week 
from working beneath it. Until we had the trenches nearly com- 
pleted it was impossible to stand erect under the camouflage. 

To speed things up we Avorked in shifts — two night gangs from 
6 to 12 and 12 to 6, and one detail that worked all day long. After 
a month of intensive quarrying with crowbars and dynamite we had 
the gun pits in some kind of shape and were beginning on the saps. 
These were to be sixty feet deep in solid rock and reasonably safe from 
bombardment. 

The contrast between the position under construction and the old 
one we were occupying was painful. Four shacks that resembled piano 
boxes standing on end, roofed with flimsy tin, were our "bombproofs.'' 
They were visible at twenty miles. 

A few scraggly bushes and a strip of weatherbeaten, punched burlap 
"hid" us from the Germans. There was one dugout at the position 
which had been useless for three years, and looked it. Every time a 
gun was fired two or three more of its rafters caved in from the 
concussion. They were picked up and saved for firewood. The tele- 
phone abri, being farther removed from the guns, bore up better 
under the shock of the explosions, but no one knew at what time it 
might be hit with a stray machine gun bullet and ruined. 

The third abri was more modern. It boasted running water, for 
one thing. Sometimes the water ran down the walls, but usually 
through the door. It was so partitioned off that the officers occupied 
one part and the gun crews another. Their quarters were separated 
by wood strips and tar paper, which acted as a sounding board for the 
occupants of both sides. "Red" Lowrance and Count Nahowski were 
the first to take advantage of the acoustics and were nearly court- 
martialed as a result. 

If we had been allowed to fight the entire war at Reherrey there 
would be no gray hairs in the battery now. We woke up in the 
morning, slipped on a pair of wooden shoes, and took a look at the 
sky. If rain threatened we built a fire in the gun pit with bundles 
of T N T ingeniously copped from Indiana's positions over the hill, 
and broke eight or ten eggs in a very dirty mess kit. One member 
of the gun crew was sent to the kitchen for bread and coffee, and in a 
few seconds we were eating omelettes, toast, jam, and coffee treated 
with condensed milk from our own private stock. We never went in 
for breakfast unless wheat cakes were on the menu. 

After breakfast we grabbed an hour's beauty sleep before we were 
called out to the guns. The daily work of cleaning the pieces and 
fussing around the gun pits seldom took long, and the rest of the 
morning was spent in improving our minds with the Saturday Evening 



42 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Post or one of the best sellers of 1901. Punctually at 10 o'clock an 
old gentleman dashed up to the position on a bicycle and delivered 
the Tribune, Mail and Herald, together with such naughty French 
magazines as our good taste permitted us to buy. Having digested 
the world's news and expressed our own conclusions, we substituted 
hobnails for wooden shoes and ambled along in for dinner. 

Harry had his kitchen in the stable below the battery office, which 
in turn was presided over by Fred E. Monast, ably assisted by Lieu- 
tenant Stone. Harry was supreme downstairs ; Frenchy above, oper- 
ating a brisk business in service records, wearing apparel, and 
Y. M. C. A. supplies ; outfitting the officers a specialt3^ It is hard 
to say which was more difficult to get, a pair of sox or seconds on 
bread pudding. 

Anyway, dinner was served any time between 10 in the morn- 
ing and 2 in the afternoon, according to Greek temperament and 
the Supply Company's distribution of wood. 

In the first few days of our stay at Reherrey we had no wood 
at all. Boxes, fruit trees and wooden doors gave out, and we were 
confronted with the possibility of eating raw meat unless something 
inflammable was salvaged before dinner time. Mme. Dabonot, 
who lived in the building of which the stable was a feature, regis- 
tered objection to the use of some small articles of bric-a-brac 
which Harry wanted to convert into firewood, and the rest of the 
village put a guard on its front doors. For a few minutes Harry 
was stumped. Then a brilliant hunch came to him. 

The day before, in his explorations for firewood, Harry had 
wandered as far as the second line trench and spent some time 
examining the barbed wire entanglements. Now, for the first time, 
it occurred to him that the wire was supported by stakes, that the 
stakes were of wood, and that wood burned easily. Quod erat 
demonstrandum. 

Surreptitiously Harry gathered a party of hungry soldiers, and 
in fifteen minutes had destroyed more barbed wire entanglements 
than a regiment of French engineers could have put up again in 
three months. 

A French officer witnessed the vandalism. He came rushing 
over, pale as death, and flung himself on Harry. 

"S-s-s-sacre ! ! !" he hissed, "Diable ! ! !" And then followed a tor- 
rent of French in which the Frenchman inquired whether all Ameri- 
cans were flooey in the filbert, and did we want to get shot, or were 
we inviting the Germans over to play with us? To which Harry 
replied in fluent Greek, with many "pas comprees," while he con- 
tinued to rip up the best hazards on the western links. Both made 
use of their hands throughout the argument, the Frenchman ges- 
ticulating and Harry clipping wire with a hatchet. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 43 



"Coffee," Harry kept repeating, "the mens must have coffee. 
Come on, boys, no fooling- — make a little fest. 

The Frenchman either swooned or ran for the commanding gen- 
eral, because Harry returned with three days' firewood, which was 
carefully camouflaged under the office stairs. 

After this incident, firewood began to come more regularly, and 
we could usually count on dinner. Sometimes we were even able 
to get seconds by telling Harry that one of the crew was on guard, 
and wouldn't be in. When he did come in, there was much knife 
waving and Greek profanity. 

The early part of the afternoon was given over to standing gun 
drill, and the destruction of imaginary cavalry coming over the 
crest, following which we wrote letters until evening mess. After 
the evening meal we either visited the cafes or played baseball in 
the road back of the positions. These contests were visible to the 
observers in the German ballons, but they were either learning the 
game or short of ammunition, for we were never disturbed. 

Some of the cannoneers stayed in the village to visit an occa- 
sional movie, or to cherchez ouefs for breakfast, or vin rouge for 
something else. There was a plentiful supply of the latter com- 
modity at 3, 5 and 10 francs the bottle. The first was diluted 
vinegar, the second fair Pinard, and the third grade bottled rebel- 
lion. There was a Y. M. C. A. where they sometimes had paper, 
and sometimes envelopes, but never both at the same time. It 
was operated by a human scantling with a bad temper, who ob- 
jected to being razzed when he tried to close the doors at 5 p. m. 
We discovered his frailty early, and razzed him until his place was 
taken by a sweet person, who assured us he was a veteran of the big 
war by virtue of his discharge from the First Officers' Training 
Camp then in his pocket. He was more unsatisfactory than his 
predecessor, and we arranged to transact our business with the 
Y. M. C. A. through the battery office. 

This program, barring an occasional call for a barrage, which we 
delivered with a celerity that amazed the doughboys, was followed 
implicitly by the cannoneers. The telephone men were less fortu- 
nate. Their lines were always being trampled upon and broken 
by the cows, who didn't seem to know that there was a war, and 
by the French farmers who didn't give a whoop whether there was 
or not. All they were interested in was their crops, with the result 
that the trouble-shooters were out early and late slicing the wure 
plowed up during the day. 

As for the rest of the battery, it followed its three-shift schedule 
constructing the new position. Work was hurried along by the 
construction of a narrow guage railroad to haul away during the 
night the rock that was taken out in the daytime. This road, which 



44 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



was at once named the Battery Position & Northern, because of its 
general direction, was under the superintendence of Chief McGee, 
and operated by such irresponsible characters as "Kitchen Cop" 
Smith, "Brick" Bristol and Ken Hoy. It was equipped with a 
shovel handle, which, when pushed in between the wheels, acted 
as a brake. The trip from the position was uphill, and because of 
the load of stone, slow. But coming down made the Twentieth 
Century Limited look like a slow freight. 

Just before entering the camouflage, there was a sharp turn. If 
our brake worked in time, there was a chance that the car would 
make it. If not, derailment and a spill was inevitable. Smithy 
usually threw our braking rod away after the car had attained thirty 
miles an hour, and had a moronic laugh ready when we picked our- 
selves up. On one occasion the car shot from the rails forty feet 
into the camouflage. No one was ever hurt — that is, seriously. 

In the meantime the drivers, whom this narrative left at Pneu- 
monia Hill, drying out their clothes, decided on a better place to 
spend the summer and proceeded to some French barracks in a 
wood near Merviller, equadistant from Baccarat and the front. 
Here the horse line was established with Lieut. "Dolly" Smith and 
Karl Geisendorfer in charge. 

For the first week or two it was a miserable hole. It rained all 
of the time and it was almost impossible to walk around in rubber 
boots without losing one or both of them. The horses had to be 
groomed a dozen times a day, ammunition went to the front at all 
hours of the night, and everybody was cold, wet and hungry all of 
the time. 

But "Dolly" Smith walked around as if it were Paris, kidding 
some driver who was registering a kick at having to make three 
trips a day, borrowing a chew of tobacco from someone else, and 
keeping everybody in good humor. When everything else failed, 
he would tip off some communicative hero not to let it get any 
farther, you know, but our barracks bags were at Brest and we 
would be with 'em, toots sweet. We were going back as instruc- 
tors, but not a word ! 

By night we were too busy talking it over to howl. 

With the approach of summer the sun began to go to work, and 
in two or three weeks our mud hole became a garden spot. A 
Y. M. C. A. was rigged up in one of the farm houses near the 
echelon and Jack Dana, 100 per cent man, took charge. The band 
usually gave a concert once a week, and played "Onward, Christian 
Soldiers" every Sunday at Chaplain McCallum's services. 

Stables, begun by the French and roofed in on our arrival, kept 
the horses clean and the stable orderlies fat, since there was noth- 
ing to do but congregate in "Buzz" Snyder's imitation abri. Every 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 45 



night the stable cops foregathered, with Mr. Seiler and Monseer 
Danforth as hosts. These gentlemen were proprietors of a trained 
single mount called Carrie Nation, who carried liquor as well. 
When the Bordeaux ran out, Carrie was dispatched with the correct 
number of francs in her saddle bags, to a vin rouge entrepreneur 
near by. In a few moments she came galloping back with its bottled 
equivalent, and the festivities were resumed. 

When we tired of home life, there was Baccarat with a dinner 
for 8 francs, and champagne for the few tipplers who chose to go 
for that purpose. At the camp, there was extra duty in the morn- 
ing for the same few. 

We even had milk with our oatmeal on these picnic grounds. 
Ivy Van Landingham playing milkman every morning with a neck- 
lace of canteens that had held something else the night before. 

The commander of the camp was "Pappy" Le Prohon. The day 
after his inauguration he surrounded himself with dog-robbers and 
sergeant-majors and cased goods, marked fragile, and guard mounts 
became military. "Bud" Boyles was drafted as sergeant-major and 
established a system whereby, everything else failing, bottled goods 
would be available on the premises. It was some time before 
"Pappy" became acquainted with this system and learned that his 
room was G. H. Q. for this post legal traffic and that his supplies 
were supposed to go around the entire regiment. 

Officers came and went. We were given replacements, "Wild 
Bill." Sloan coming with the first group. Dan Elwell was busted 
as first sergeant following a dispute with Lieutenant Stone, touch- 
ing upon who was battery commander, he (Elwell) or Lieutenant 
Stone. On this point, Lieutenant Stone decided in his own favor, 
and retired Mr. Elwell to the horse lines with rank of sergeant, 
where he magnanimously consented to hold his peace. Karl Geisen- 
dorfer became first sergeant. 

The details we had sent from Fort Sheridan and Camp Mills for 
the care and convoy-across of our horses, strolled into camp one 
day looking for some place where they could throw their packs. 
Some of them had been detached from the outfit for more than 
seven months, and we had given up guessing when the}^ would re- 
join the battery at Coetquidan. When they got through telling us 
all about the States and life on a horseboat, we recited our thrills 
at the front. In all, it was quite a reunion. 

"Pick" Dodds kept dusting off his sergeant's chevrons, acquired 
since his departure from the battery, and Charlie Jones and Bush 
McGraw had been made corporals during their absence. Ward 
Kilgore and Bill Donaldson wore the crossed cannon of the first 
class private on their sleeves, which was considered to be a Hot 
Sketch by the rest. They vv-ere removed during the night. 



46 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Orders came through, returning officers to the States as instruc- 
tors. Lieut. A. J. Webster was the first to go ; about a week later 
we lost Lieut. "Dolly" Smith. 

"Dolly" packed up reluctantly, looking around, like Sister Anne, 
for some courier to dash up and say it was all a horrible mistake. 
Instead, a confirmation of the order came and "Dolly" shook hands 
all around and climbed into the buckboard, homeward bound. 
The band broke off in the middle of the "Sextette" to play "Some of 
These Days You'll Miss Me, Honey," and "Illinois Loyalty," and 
"Dolly" looked as if he wanted to cry. We felt worse. 

The buckboard rattled over the hill and we sent a farewell three 
cheers after it. "Dolly" waved his hat and disappeared. 

"Pinard" Parks and Lieutenant Kimball were left in charge of the 
horse lines. Pinard went out stepping in the early days of his 
administration and had a controversy with an M. P. Shortly there- 
after, he began returning a good deal of his pay to the government 
as a result of this dispute. There were a few contemporary scandals. 
"Porch Climber" took a bath and was in the hospital the next day, 
suffering from shock. Leo Fincke refused to give Lieutenant Brad- 
ford, then acting in his office as officer of the day, his mail, on the 
grounds that he was eating and could not be disturbed. The 
officers got into a tangle and were straightened out by Major 
Redden. A Y. M. C. A. speaker got up and allowed that we joined 
the army to escape the draft, and were crazy to go home. He was 
invited out by Major Redden and his ideas were revised. So was 
his nose — almost. Irving Bullard met Lieutenant Neiburg, who 
had arrived from the States the day before, and sez, "Why, Sam !" 
just like that. It was Sam Bullard for the duration of the war. 
Bob Groves and Art Barker settled an argument over the relative 
rank of a corporal and a O. M. clerk with fisticuffs. El well picked 
up a pacing horse and named him "Buddie" for some weird reason 
still undiscovered. It is a cinch he couldn't pace ; and equally cer- 
tain he was no one's "buddie." 

There were keg parties galore, and private orgies presided over 
by Sig Stewart and "Dutch" Seller, at which the story of Paul Revere, 
with Joey Percival in the principal role, was always re-enacted. 

Over all presided "Pappy" Le Prohon, king of the Merviller 
woods. His guard mounts were notorious all over the sector for 
their conformity to the regulations. Second looies trembled at his 
approach. He was in every part of the camp at the same time. 

One day he was dusting Prince off, brushing his teeth, and put- 
ting a little shoe dubbing on his hoofs, when along came a second 
looie just assigned to the regiment. 

The day was hot, and "Pappy" had removed his coat, and with 
it all insignia of rank. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 47 



"Hey, you," says the lieutenant (Hey-you being the nickname 
given all soldiers by officers). "What's the matter with you? Is 
your right arm paralyzed or something? Or don't you recognize 
an officer when you see him?" 

"Pappy" looked up from his work to see what private was getting 
it now. When he saw the looie's finger indicating him, he had a 
stroke of apoplexy. The lieutenant mistook "Pappy's" wrath for 
stage fright, and continued : 

"Well, why don't you salute?" 

And "Pappy" tore loose. 

"Why didn't I — oh h-d-p-j-g-z- ?-!-!! I am yo' commanding off-i- 
cer. Now you salute me ! ! ! Keep on saluting me ! " 

For twenty minutes "Pappy" kept introducing new, unheard-of 
cuss words that were later widely quoted when the caissons stuck 
on a shelled road. 

As the weeks loafed along, business became more brisk. Up at 
the positions, one of the batteries had shot up a German P. C. 
According to the old rules, all dugouts housing Ober-Leutnants and 
up were to be unmolested. Angered by our variance from Hoyle, 
the Germans retailiated. Our reply was to destroy a couple of obser- 
vation posts, and before long a merry war was on. It was no longer 
safe for the Germans to hold setting up exercises in the second 
line, and a risky business for our doughboys to go to mess. 

The ill feeling of both sides culminated in another J Day and H 
Hour on May 3. The attack was worked up to by three days of 
preliminary firing, directed principally at the German wire. On 
the third morning we laid a box barrage around the German de- 
fenses in the Bois des Chiens, and cleaned them out. Nearly all of 
the enemy had been cut to pieces when the doughboys went over. 

The firing was done from the new positions, necessitating the 
movement of thousands of rounds of ammunition, most of it by 
hand. When the attack broke, we were so tired by this work that 
the gun crews were able to sleep under the tubes of the guns, wak- 
ing up at each report, and dropping back to sleep again. 

For several days following the attack, we waited for reprisal, but 
except for a few strays, the Germans were quiet. Gradually we 
swung again into the old routine. 

With the beginning of summer, the fruit trees scattered through- 
out the little town began to bloom, lilacs and cornflowers, and 
poppies appeared, and there followed a series of perfect days. Even 
Harry and Ed Hilliard became amicable, and the Little Greek would 
make long pilgrimages over the country for strange weeds and 
boiled eggs for the salad. On one of these occasions he encountered 
a fellow-countryman, who afterward made frequent calls and grew 
fat in our kitchen, and all because he could spick Grick. 



48 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

The machine gunners established themselves in a shady grove 
near the position and made life a nightmare for all the birds in the 
vicinity. Harry Hopper made a laboratory out of an abandoned 
trench, and exploded all the shrapnel and H. E. he could steal from 
the position, to the infinite distress of all law-abiding people, who 
didn't want to go to the hospital that way. 

More remote from the position was our O. P., a little shack with 
a rocket board in the front yard, where the barrage signals were 
observed and reported. It was inhabited at all times by Paul Pay- 
ton and Carroll French, and by a detail of cannoneers every night. 
Every time Ken Hoy and George Savage formed the detail, a new 
Liberty Loan was called for in the States, one or the other of them 
having called for at least four barrages for every night they stood 
guard. Flares, rockets, or a doughboy using his briquet — it made 
no difference. One night a doughboy lit a cigarette and we fired for 
three hours. It is estimated that the ammunition uselessly shot 
away by these two birds cost the government $1,465,926.23 in two 
weeks. 

Sometimes a barrel of beer was subscribed for and set up on the 
lawn beside the kitchen. On these occasions the French were in- 
vited over, and a singing contest would develop. Our allies' reper- 
toire consisted of "Madelone," the "Marseillaise" and a drinking 
song, at the close of which all were supposed to drain their mess kit 
cups at one swallow. Our specialty was the "Blues," a song that 
the Frogs admired because of its sentiment, which we carefully 
explained. Here we started the Bulla-Bulla Club with "Goofy" 
Pierre as charter member; and here we learned to drink from 
French canteens. 

Toward the close of May, the Germans began getting hufify. 
There was an artillery attack on some part of the sector every night; 
they were giving us everything, even projector gas. Sensing a 
general attack, the guns were moved back to the new position, 
now nearly completed, on June 2. Once more we put our days in 
working, and carried shells at night. 

The only place considered safe for an ammunition dump was a 
series of reserve trenches two hundred yards from the new position. 
Four shells at a time, we moved two thousands rounds a night, 
until the morning of the attack. Saps were cleaned out and made 
bomb proof; everything was in readiness. 

Early in the morning of June 6 it came. Viewed in the light of 
later campaigns, it was a brisk little skirmish ; then it was com- 
parable with Verdun. The German barrage was preceded by a 
gas attack, and commenced at half past one in the morning. Lieu- 
tenant Skinner, then battery executive, was at the guns. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 49 

The gas horns sounded up and down the line. The lieutenant 
became a little skittish. So did we. 

We waited. A barrage was called for, and the next moment 
we were sending all of our H. E. over in merry cadence. Then — 
Bam ! ! ! — a shell landed in front of the position. 

Right here let it be said that we knew it was the finish. We had 
been told that the Germans could shell us out of house and home 
whenever they pleased. Our positions were designed to withstand 
a heavy bombardment and were six months from completion. A 
perfectly good path, easily photographed, led from the town to the 
position. 

So with that first shell, our hearts sank. Our anxiety was not 
helped when another alighted in the same place, and four slam- 
banged in behind us. 

"Ah," sighed a cheerful spirit, "a perfect bracket. Now in two or 
three minutes " 

But Lieutenant Skinner did not wait. Into the telephone sap, 
which happened to be the deepest, he dived. Half of the masonry 
tumbled in after him. 

"The phone — quick!!" he gasped. "Get Lieutenant Stone, for 
God's sake." 

Lieutenant Stone, then sleeping in town, was reached. 

"Howard !" screamed the battery executive. "Oh, Howard ! My 
God ! ! !" 

"What's the matter?" asked Lieutenant Stone. 

"What's the matter?" wept Lieutenant Skinner. "They're only 
killing us, that's all. The position is being drenched with shells — 
getting blown to bits. What'll I do?— what'll I do?" 

By the time Lieutenant Skinner emerged from the abri, the 
shelling was over. The horrible bombardment had ended. Six or 
eight shells had landed near the position, and there had been some 
close shaves for the men who had stayed outside, working the guns. 

Lieutenant Stone arrived at the position and directed the rest of 
the firing. Notwithstanding the small number of shells fired, it was 
our first experience serving the guns under fire, and will never be 
forgotten. 

The next important event in the battery was the accidental gass- 
ing of Walter Birkland, Roy Gullickson and "Doc" Bristow, on 
their way in to the battery from the observation post. A twelve 
inch dud had been partly excavated by the French and exploded 
near the road. What was left was portable and desirable for 
souvenirs. "Birky" got the fuse and a part of the rotating band. 
"Gully" and "Doc" chipped off other parts of the shell, and all held 
up mess half an hour exhibiting their trophies. 

The next morning there was a prevalence of itch in the battery. 



50 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

Everyone who had handled the shell fragments was afflicted, "Birky" 
and Roy and "Doc" particularly. An examination of the souvenirs 
brought out the fact that the shell was loaded with mustard gas, and a 
high old time was in store for the collectors. The three went to the hos- 
pital and several members of the battery attended sick call for a 
month. 

Harley Tucker, being a souvenir hunter of a different sort, coming 
back from an O P one day brought an imitation French bull pup, 
called "Topsy" by the battery, and a lot of other things by the French 
soldiers, whom she ran ragged at every opportunity. 

The battery thought highly of "Topsy" until she took her first 
A W O L, and, returning, deposited eight or nine or ten pups in 
"Buck" Somers' bed without notifying him of her intention before- 
hand. The pups — those that didn't die — were passed around to the 
different batteries, and Topsy's indiscretion was charitably passed over. 
Thereafter she was chained. 

The little old front subsided again and events became common- 
place. Once we were stirred to a realization of war by the sight of 
an aeroplane falling in flames, a spectacle we had long dreamed of. 

It occurred at mess time, so suddenly that few knew there was a 
fight overhead. The German pilot tried gamely to make his own 
lines, and when found had his scarf wrapped about his face to shield 
it from the flames; his hands were still clenched around the joy stick. 

Mess was abandoned and a cross-country run was started for 
souvenirs. The French soldiers guarding the still burning plane were 
shoved aside and the machine was divested of everything but the 
engine. Cush Pryor grabbed the propeller and two or three cylinders 
of the engine and got away three jumps ahead of an American M. P. 
Ray Ouisno had enough of the aviator's personal effects to stock up 
his friends for some time to come. Bill Ackerman and others had 
most of the fabric of the plane. 

The battery was relieved of active work and held in reserve, but the 
firing went on. Frequently it was picked, as "the battery having the 
least discipline and firing the most shells," for reprisal fires that the 
regiment was called upon to execute. The "flu" hit us and deprived 
us of most of our effectives. Dutch Seller was sent to Officers' School. 
"Birkie" came back from the hospital and told us about the golf 
games and the ice cream sodas at Vittel. "Gully" came back a 
day or two later and corroborated everything. "Chick" Buell went 
on detached service as an instructor for the units just coming over. 
There was a wedding in town between bombardments; the couple, as 
far as anyone can learn, settled down and lived happily ever after. 

Early in Jime reports of our jump to a more active front were fre- 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 51 



quent. Again we were to be sent to the Marne, the Aisne, or the 
United States. Again neither developed. 

Toward the middle of June reports came stronger, and one day 
elements of the 77th Division began moving in. We packed. Lieu- 
tenant Stone made us throw away our wooden shoes and other equip- 
ment not indispensable to sector warfare. Ammunition was sorted 
all over again and we were rarin' to go. Every one of us had the 
fear of being killed in a quiet sector, which we all felt would have 
been a horrible disgrace, with Chateau Thierry going on. 

At niidnight on June 19 and 20 we pulled out of the Baccarat sector 
after occupying it for seventy-nine days. A battery of French artil- 
lery, parts of the 251st Regiment, relieved us. The move was made 
by platoons with one day's interval. 

We walked all night in a driving rain, and until noon of the next 
day. The route was back and to the south. We unhitched, parked 
the guns and found billets at Damas-aux-Bois after a hike of forty 
kilometers. The following day there was a band concert in the 
afternoon, and in the evening we were paid. This latter circumstance 
started something, since there were no restrictions as to shaking the 
bones or the bottles. The second platoon romped in during the day. 

The next day we rested, played ball, listened to the band, and 
scoured the country for strawberries and cream — our first taste of the 
latter in eight months. 

Most of the battery became acquainted with Germaine and her 
mother and formed new opinions of the French. The rest explored 
the neighboring towns for eggs. 

On the following day, June 23, it was announced that we were going 
to Chateau Thierry to back up the Marines. With this idea in mind 
we wrote the appropriate letters, rolled rolls and set out for Charmes, 
a railhead twelve kilometers away. The trip was begun early in the 
afternoon, and we were tucked in the usual box cars and were ready 
to go that evening. We received some more impressions on the hike. 
Our first French ice cream was sold at the loading platform by some 
enterprising French persons, and there were a number of Canadian 
hospital units to comment on. 

The trip for most of the battery was a hilarious one. Only we 
didn't go to Chateau Thierry, to our great disappointment. We 
detrained at Chalons-sur-Marne and made a nine-kilometer hike to 
Chepy, a little chalk town near the Marne. 

Here we rested four days. We drilled at everything, learned how 
to roll roils all over again, took daily plunges in the Marne 
canal, greased and washed carriages — all the occupations of well- 
conducted rest camps. Protests were made here at Czar Danforth's 
ordering of the mess, which resulted in slum twice daily. Mr. Fincke 
kicked over the traces a bit. The cannoneers showed the drivers a 



52 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



thing or two about baseball, and we had fairly decent billets, where 
we caught cooties all over again. 

Some mention, too, should be made of the Chepy Milk and Cream 
Company, where cream cheese was sold at wholesale. In the lean, 
hungry days of our first appearance in the town all the boys resem- 
bled truck farmers with their load of eggs, lettuce, and cheese — com- 
ponent parts of a square meal. The army was still providing dehy- 
drated Ford tires and goldfish as a daily diet. 

Once during our stay at Chepy somebody sent an inspecting officer 
around to see what we were getting. After being informed by one 
of the officers that the food supplied was dainty and delightful, as the 
officers' food undoubtedly was, the inspector continued his inspection 
amongst the men. "Draggy" Kurtz had the nerve, the inexcusable 
nerve, to show the inspector his mess kit full of dehydrated delight, 
thereby contradicting the officers. Since which time "Draggy" has 
been caught more times at inspection than any other man in the 
organization. 

Champagne 

On our fourth night in town we left Chepy for the front. The 
march was made at night — most of our marches were — and we arrived 
at Camp de Carriere at daybreak. 

The camp was a collection of wooden barracks spread out over a 
plain of chalk. Groves of scrub pine, as scrubby as the land, offered 
little shelter from the sun. The guns were parked in the scrub, and 
standing gun drill was held daily. Although there was little aerial 
activity, everyone was under cover all of the time. The camp would 
have made an excellent target for German bombers. This secrecy 
proved to be our salvation, as far as drill went. As fast as we at- 
tempted a battery drill in the open we were jolly well bawled out by 
the French, who were keeping our presence in the sector a secret. 
So we passed away the time in visiting a near-by aviation field, trading 
enormous amounts of francs for toy planes, learning once more how 
to pitch a pup tent, and watchfully waiting. 

The 30th day of June marked the first anniversary of our service 
with the United States army. To commemorate it there was a band 
concert, and Colonel Reilly and Major Redden spoke. 

Colonel Reilly told us that we had been selected as a combat unit, 
and intimated that the distinction was not all it was cracked up to be. 
The accuracy of his predictions soon was proven. 

Shivers ran up and down many a backbone when he told us some- 
thing of the stark realities we were soon to face and how we were 
going to face them. Then Major Redden asked us once more not to 
forget the ideals for which we were fighting, and made every man 
think a little better of himself. 

On the first day of July we received an order to move, followed 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 53 



by an as-you-were. We made another false start on the third. On 
the fourth we were given a holiday following stables and until stables — 
about four hours in all. On the night of the Fourth we moved into 
L'Esperance-Souain sector of the Champagne front to take part in the 
decisive battle of the world. 

Our positions were made in a little saucer hollow in the midst of a 
wide and weary plain, the face of which was Avrinkled for miles by the 
trenches of four years of war. Here and there were clumps of trees 
that could live in the chalk soil. Our kitchen at first was placed in one 
of these clumps, almost a mile from the battery position. 

The second line trench system ran in front of the position and was 
utilized for the storage of ammunition. We slept in it, although the 
heat of the sun, caught by the white chalk, caused everyone to wake 
in a dead sweat ten minutes after sunrise. As we worked only at 
night on the positions, this made sleeping almost out of the question. 

By day we sat and sweated in a barren plain, watching the heat 
waves around the position, cursing the boob who imagined a German 
attack here of all places in the world. Occasionally we heard a gun 
boom, miles to our right, and once a shell sang over our heads and 
dropped as far back in the S. O. S. as shells go. We prayed for a 
breeze as hard as ever did the Ancient Mariner, but the heat remained, 
still and dry and intense. Water was worth a million francs a can- 
teenful and was unobtainable unless the water wagon was able to 
get under way at night. The grass had withered up years ago. An 
occasional stunted poppy blazed from the dead grass like a beacon. 
No one showed himself during the day except the men whose duty 
it was to bring the mess from the kitchen. All was a dreary solitude 
beneath which lurked a ceaseless, invisible activity. 

But with the first signs of dusk the remaining elements of the 
division, not yet in position, came trooping over the hills, miles and 
miles of men, walking in single file ; machine gun carts silhouetted 
against the sky — doughboys, doughboys, doughboys — French, Amer- 
ican, and Pole — until it seemed that all of France couldn't hold them. 
By degrees we began to realize the immensity of the coming battle. 
Every day the battery ganged up under the second section camouflage, 
and the officers discussed the battle and what we were expected to do. 
Every night we were warned that the attack might come in our sleep 
and that we must be in readiness, with our blankets rolled as soon as 
possible after the alarm was given. 

When the morning broke with the same hum-drum round of con- 
cealment and work in store it was hard to drum into us once more the 
necessity to be unceasingly, relentlessly on our toes. 

Briefly, our part of the attack was to be as follows : 

With hundreds of other batteries we were to wait until the Germans 
had reached our own first line in such numbers that our fire would 



54 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



have deadly effect. Our guns were laid on our first line trenches. 
We were to fire as directed, as fast as possible, until the attack was 
broken or we were forced to retreat. The latter course we decided we 
would take when we could see our targets. We agreed that we would 
stay as long as we could hold them off at point-blank range, and pull 
our guns out as the last possible resort. In the event of tanks reach- 
ing our positions we were instructed what to do. 

As the signs of attack became daily more apparent, warnings to be 
on the alert were no longer necessary. 

We dug gun pits and banked them waist high with chalk blocks. 
What we couldn't finish at night we worked at during the day. Gas 
equipment was inspected daily. Ammunition was replied so that it 
might be more available when the melee came. 

With each night's evening our nervous tension increased. Signs of 
the coming attack became more numerous. Swarms of French planes, 
so high up as to be almost invisible, made reconnaisance trips early in 
the morning and at sunset. There was a great stir in the German lines, 
visible from our observatories. Caisson after caisson of ammunition — 
field guns — were brought up to the German first line, sometimes in 
broad daylight. Girders to bridge the trenches came. The German 
preparations for the battle seemed fast and recklessly sure. 

From in back of our lines, regiment after regiment of French Chas- 
seurs began to pour into our first-line positions, already full. Our 
kitchen was moved to a point near the observatory to make room for 
another battery of French artillery. 

On the 11th of July, tension was at its height. General Gouraud, 
commanding the French Fourth Army, of which we were a part, 
addressed the following order to the French and American troops of 
his command: 

"Soldiers of the Fourth Army : 

"We may be attacked at any moment. All of you feel that a defensive 
battle was never fought before under more favorable conditions. You 
are warned. You are on your guard with powerful reinforcements of 
infantry and artillery. You will fight on the ground you have trans- 
formed by your hard work into a mighty fortress. You will be invin- 
cible if the passages are properly guarded. 

"The bombardment will be terrible, but you will withstand it with- 
out weakening. The assault will be made in clouds of smoke, dust 
and gas. It will be terrific, but your position and your arms are for- 
midable. 

"In your breasts beat the brave, strong hearts of free men. No one 
will look back, nor yield an inch. Each of you will have but one 
thought — to kill, and to kill until they have had enough. 

"Your general says that you will break this assault, and that it will 
be broken gloriously." 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 55 



On the 12th, planes became more numerous and more active. More 
ammunition was hustled to the position. The gun pits were banked a 
little higher. 

On the 14th, the French celebrated Bastile day. Some Pinard went 
up to the front lines with the ammunition and supplies. 

In our afternoon discussion of the attack we tried to fathom the 
German delay. Most of the battery held to a general rumor that, 
if the Germans did not attack, the French, tired of waiting, would 
start something on their own account as a celebration of their national 
holiday. 

We rolled into our blankets that night with the assurance that 
something was going to happen. Early in the night a barrage started 
on our left. After listening for a few moments we decided that it 
was a raid. In a few moments all was quiet again. There was sulky 
firing up and down the front at ten or fifteen minute intervals, fol- 
lowed by another short barrage, again on our left, at 10 o'clock. This 
dwindled away into silence. Even the boom of the big guns seemed 
seldom and remote. 

Fifteen minutes to 12. 

The men were awakened and told that the attack had come. From 
the prisoners taken in the raids on our left it was learned that the 
artillery preparation was to commence at midnight. 

In those fifteen minutes rolls were hurriedly made, gas clothes 
scrambled into, and the crews were standing beside the guns when the 
darkness was ripped open by a wavering sheet of flame, forty miles 
long. The thousands of allied guns not held for use against the 
infantry had fired on the second of 12. 

The crash of sound that came immediately afterward is compar- 
able to nothing in the world. After the first deafening salvo it 
developed into a rolling drum fire that made the commands inaudible. 
The German guns were not long in replying, and the noise became 
an incessant rumble so loud that we were unable to hear the reports 
of the French batteries on our right and left. The ground trembled 
and shook. Scores of brilliantly colored rockets and flares sailed 
from the front lines into the blazing sky, adding to the spectacle. 
The rush of thousands of shells overhead was felt rather than heard. 
The firing became increasingly furious. Here and there a cloud of 
smoke appeared in the jumping red flash, and fragments of the shell 
whistled around the position. 

But everyone was too spellbound to take cover. The cannoneers 
hovered near the pieces, occasionally sneaking a cigarette by camou- 
flaging the light in their hands, and caressing the shells intended for 
the first wave of the enemy. Gunners again looked at their sight 
bubbles and twisted the sight wheel a thousandth of an inch, only to 
repeat the operation a moment or two later. 



56 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Up went a rocket dump, with thousands of bhies and greens and 
reds popping in the cluster. 

"Whoop-ee !" yelled John Stovich ; "that's gar 'em." 

There was an indistinct crash and a shower of sparks in front of 
the position. The big shells were coming closer. They were hardly 
noticed in the rear of the barrage. Sometimes the ping of a gas 
shell, close by, separated itself from the torrent of noise. But the 
wind was in our favor and most of the fumes were carried back 
toward the German lines. 

Incendiary shells fell in patches of pine trees suspected of giving 
concealment to one of our batteries, and the entire plain lighted up 
with a red glare. Miles away from these bursts it was possible to 
read a newspaper. 

A big shell found an ammunition dump. There was a volcano of 
smoke and flame and the sky was peppered with white pufifs. A feeble 
rattle of ten thousand rounds of shrapnel came through the uproar. 

With the first light of day the Germans came over. Somebody 
shouted an order and in the next instant we were pumping them 
over, one himdred an hour per piece, and cussing the cadence because it 
wasn't fast enough. 

With the order to fire came a deafening wave of sound, never 
heard before nor since. Hell broke loose. Anyone not present in the 
Champagne on the morning of July 15, 1918, might be able to imagine 
a minimum of that frenzied barrage by riding the bumpers of a freight 
train traveling a million miles an hour over a wobbly roadbed. Our 
guns sounded like cap pistols in a boiler factory. 

Swarms of German planes appeared from nowhere and dived up 
and down the front lines, raking the infantry with machine gun fire. 
A few French, hopelessly outnumbered, sailed out to meet them and 
were shot down in flames. The air was full of diving, spinning planes. 

A Fokker swooped over the position, firing into the camouflage 
over the guns. Vic Stangel, Gush Pryor and Ouisno sicked "Minnie 
Gump," our forward machine gun, on him, and we were bothered 
no more. 

During all of the tumult Topsy and her pups frisked around the 
gun pits, barking and yipping with every report of the guns, trying 
to add their voices to the tumult. At one time the fourth piece had 
to cease fire because the pups were in front of the gun. 

Earh^ in the morning ammunition trains came racing over the shelled 
roads. Shells dropped between the carriages, giving us a momentary 
thrill by blotting out the teams. With few exceptions, though, they 
came trotting out of the smoke with the drivers uninjtu'ed. 

A company of the 117th Ammunition Train brought the battery 
its first ammunition under heavy shell fire, escaping death by exe- 
cuting a right into line at a dead gallop. Three German sausage 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 57 



balloons were set on fire within five minutes. A battery of 105s firing 
from the clump of trees in which we had had our kitchen was 
smothered with big shells. Their guns, flashing from the smoke of 
the bombardment, fired to the last. Don McArthur was badly burned 
by the flash of the first piece, accidentally discharged while he was 
swabbing it out. Lieutenant Wegner was wounded by a shell explod- 
ing near the position. 

No Man's Land, visible from the observatories, was hid in a seeth- 
ing cloud of smoke and chalk dust. Every now and then a shell 
larger than the rest pushed a volcanic pillar of black or gray smoke 
through the ruck. The Prussian Guards, fighting their way through 
that hell, we could only imagine. 

Breakfast was brought to the positions at 9 o'clock, and a detail 
formed to rush water for the guns, now so hot that the paint was 
dripping from the tubes. The cadence was increased. The Germans 
were getting through. 

A shell, hitting in the post of command, partially buried Captain 
Stone, who was attempting a shave, and caused the observers to 
scurry to the abri. 

At the horse lines ten caissons had started at dawn for ammu- 
nition. They reached the first dump after being shelled from all 
the roads, just in time to see it go up. Another and another was 
tried, with the same results. They were able to get the first load 
to the guns early in the afternoon. It was not until the following 
morning that they reached the camp. 

At the beginning of the attack the drivers, in accordance with plans, 
v/ere given harness and hitch. For two days the piece drivers stood 
beside their teams awaiting the word to pull out. 

From the seat of the Chariot du Pare a panoramic view of the 
entire spectacle was possible. We could see the entire front, as far 
as Rheims, which had been set on fire. When Lieutenant Wegner 
was wounded Lieutenant Kimball went up to take his place, and 
Pinard Parks, Lieutenant Radford and Karl Geisendorfer ran the 
show. 

There had been a little beefing when Colonel Reilly had given us a 
patch of scrub pine for a horse line, especially as there were nice, 
comfortable barracks and stables half a kilometer away. These were 
occupied by Indiana troops. 

The attack had not been in progress an hour before the Indiana 
men tore from their barracks over to our woods. For an hour the 
air was filled with barracks, horses, and curses. As we gazed on the 
ruin of the envied shacks we hinted to Indiana that they had better 
move off our road. We didn't know whether we would have to leave 



58 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

the woods or not, but we insisted on a fast track when we started. 

All morning the German heavies pounded into every clump of brush 
on the plain, our own being the only exception. All morning we 
wondered when they would remember our little woods, and how long 
it would take us to make the reserve echelon on the gallop. A 
number of Indiana's horses, running loose, were killed. 

Aeroplane alerts were given every five minutes, and most of the 
day was spent tmder cover. The horses were watered in groups all 
day long. Coming back from the water tank just after dark, one 
of the columns was fired on by a German plane. 

Sam Wallace and Bob Beuhler shot the daylights out of a plane that 
flew over the woods in the morning, skimming the treetops. Its mark- 
ings were indistinct, and the officers developed heart failure over the 
possibility of its being an allied plane. 

Toward noon the incessant throb of the guns gradually died down, 
and for an hour or two there was only the occasional rumble of the 
heavies still battering the Germans' rear lines. The German attack 
was broken. 

Early in the afternoon the firing was resumed, as the enemy re- 
formed and again tried to storm our positions. After five hours of 
hot firing that, too, dwindled away into the haphazard pot shots of 
any active sector. 

Intelligence reports were compiled at regimental headquarters and 
sent to the battery. For the first time we learned that the German 
attack had failed. 

At the end of the day the cannoneers had shed their gas clothes and, 
in most cases, their undershirts. It was a dirty, tired battery that 
night, but a happy one. Word came from Colonel Reilly just before 
we rolled in complimenting the battery on its day fire. Our contribu- 
tion to the battle had been 2,592 rounds in one day. 

During the night the battery maintained a harassing fire on the 
enemy lines. We were shelled in the first part of the night, and a 
German plane flew low, firing at the flashes. 

The Germans attacked again the following morning, and the bat- 
tery delivered several barrages, several times resuming our first fire 
of 100 rounds per piece an hour. More details of the battle were in- 
cluded in a second intelligence report. These embodied the further 
congratulations of Major Redden and the commanding officers of the 
infantry regiments we were supporting. 

At the horse lines the carriages still remained at harness and hitch, 
in readiness to get out on a second's notice. Although we knew that 
the offensive had been smashed, we felt that it might be resumed at 
any moment, and we were ready. It was rumored that we were to 
counter-attack, with a view of stabilizing the line. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 59 



The horse Hues were populated with some of the PoHsh Legion, who 
played hookey on the first day of the attack. In some way they grav- 
itated to our woods, assigned themselves to different batteries, and 
attacked our corned willy in mass formation. 

Pappy Le Prohon encountered the two who had chosen Battery F 
on the day after the attack, industriously prying open a can of gold- 
fish. Catching sight of the horizon-blue uniform and the trick kepi 
of the legion. Pappy started a conversation in French, with a view of 
learning the latest about the battle. 

Now it happened that the Polish Legion, for the most part, was 
recruited in the Stockyards of Chicago, and most of its members had 
never studied polite French. So the first legionnaire glanced up with- 
out paying any particular attention to Pappy's silver bars and said : 

"Where do you get that French chatter? Can't you talk English, 
you big stiff?" 

Which so enraged Pappy that he went out and found an ofiicer 
from the legion, and our visitors were run along back to the first line. 

On the 17th a day of spasmodic fire on both sides ended with a 
drenching rain that pounded on the position for an hour and a half. 
Because of our orders to be ready to get out we were caught without 
shelter of any kind. After the sleepless nights of the past week 
and a half, and the work and worry of the attack, the rain was the 
only agency lacking that could push our morale three points lower than 
it could possibly go. 

A gas attack preceded the rain and most of the men had donned 
masks. Any rain will neutralize an ordinary attack, but Vic Stangel 
and Ray Quisno wore theirs until the water ran into the canisters, 
threatening them with death by drowning. The rest were so tired 
that they rolled up in their slickers and slept, with the rain beating 
on their faces. 

On the day following it was announced that the French and Amer- 
icans had struck in the Soissons-Rheims salient and that they were going 
through. Everyone felt that the long-expected counter-offensive was 
ready and that it would never stop. For weeks we had been talking 
it over, unable to understand why somebody didn't start something. 
We were told that the allied success was complete and that it was made 
possible by our defense of Chalons. Our morale jumped to 1000. 

Early reports were vague and overexaggerated. It was rumored that 
Foch was closing the salient from the top and that a million Germans 
were surrounded. The French began to turn out of the sector, wav- 
ing their hands and bidding us good-by, tickled to death. When it 
was announced that we would leave at any moment to participate in 
the allied attack, our morale ran away with us. 

On the 19th news came that the British had commenced an offensive 



60 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



farther north, and we were ordered to move to the Chateau Thierry 
sahent. When the moon rose that night we pulled out of the Cham- 
pagne. We had fought in the bitterest battle of the entire war and 
were covered with chalk and glory. The chalk stayed with us until we 
reached Chateau Thierry. The glory left on the first hike. The regi- 
mental rendezvous was five kilometers from the guns. We made it 
on the double, superstitious enough to reason that after five days of 
narrow escapes we weren't going to get caught standing on any road 
on the way out. 

In the three days of severe fighting the battery had fired 
1,916 rounds into infantry advancing in mass formation. In 
our sector eight waves of German shock troops, with do-or-die 
orders, had been repulsed without gaining a footing in the first line 
trench. We knew then that the 42d Division could lick the entire 
German army, hands down. We admitted it while rolling Bull Durham 
cigarettes in the rain, lighting them with French sulphur matches. 
Discomfort was preferable to detection, and the blue sulphur flame, 
while it almost asphyxated, rarely ever got anybody into trouble for 
showing a light on the march. Having lighted our cigarettes by nearly 
suffocating ourselves, we smoked them by closing them in the palms of 
our hands, extinguishing the coal like a Spartan at the approach of an 
officer. 

The next day we slept in a woods near Dampierre au Temple. 
At dusk the march w^as resumed, and by morning the battery had 
reached its entraining point, Vitry-la-Ville. Billets were found at 
Cheppes, three kilometers away. 

On the first night of the march out of the sector a detail of drivers 
went to Chalons for more horses. The town had been set on fire by 
incendiary bombs and German long-range guns, and thousands of 
women and little children were sleeping in the fields and along the 
roads that led to the city. Near the gates almost a thousand German 
prisoners were huddled. Their nerves were completely shot and they 
laughed and wept by turns. 

The detail rejoined the battery at their first day's encampment 
early the next morning. 

At Cheppes, Harry set up his kitchen in a lady's front door and 
entered upon his usual system of trading rations for smiles. If some 
hungry vigilantes had not arrived there would have been no dinner. 
The little Greek, by a series of clandestine winks and eyebrow manipu- 
lations, was just arranging to give the lady a side of beef for a kiss. 
Dinner that night included two packages of Minerva biscuit apiece, 
Captain Stone's gift to the battery in celebration of his promotion. 
The owners of several tummyaches the next morning wished he had 
been reduced to the ranks instead. 

We entrained for the Chateau Thierry salient at dawn on July 22. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 61 

La Ferte Sous Jouarre was reached in the afternoon of the next day, 
A sogg'v rain did not stop us from unloading horses and material in 
forty-five minutes — a regimental record. 

Parenthetically, it was on this trip to Chateau Thierry that we began 
to understand how much the French depended upon us for help. 
Towns that had seen us come and go with a listless curiosity during 
the early days of our participation in the war were now draped with 
American flags, and women and children cheered and threw kisses 
as we rolled through. Our work in the Champagne and at the Marne 
made us, for the moment, saviors of France. The thought imparted a 
thrill, and more than ever we were ready to go. 

Our next stopping place was a forest on the outskirts of Montreuil- 
aux-Lions, reached after a long, hot hike, uphill all the way. At the 
beginning of the counter-offensive it had been the camp of the 101st 
Artillery. Everything was wreck, riot and confusion. The 26th Divi- 
sion, hot after 'em, had lost everything but their enthusiasm in their 
anxiety to gather a few Teut scalps. We were able to salvage every- 
thing from B. V. D.s to canned goldfish without the customary cross- 
examination by a peevish O. M. sergeant. The woods had been mer- 
rily bombed the night before and a number of horses had been killed. 
We put in most of the day burying them, a nicety that was forgotten 
later on. 

The following morning we were lined up and our identification tags 
were again inspected. The captain mournfully reminded us of their 
use, as he had at Chalons and Reherrey. Many gloomy predictions 
touching upon the coming scrap were dropped here and there, with 
the idea of making us happy. At noon July 25 we pulled out for the 
front. 

The march led us through Lucy, Bouresches and Belleau Wood, 
every kilo revealing another town pounded into dust, or a few black 
and splintered sticks that had been a green forest. Here and there 
helmets and rifles marked the graves of American dead — the first 
time we had seen graves so marked. German helmets and uniforms 
and guns littered the road, testifying to the rout. 

Chateau Thierry 

The hike lasted all day and far into the night. During the 
afternoon the heat became terrific, but there was no let-up. We 
were chasing Germans. Water was worth your right arm, and 
nobody had it. In all, the march was the worst we had ever endured. 
At midnight we had almost caught up with the retreating Germans, and 
pulled our guns into a wood near Epieds for the night. 

The next day we dug graves and held funeral services for two 
Americans who had fallen near the woods two days before. Jack 



62 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

Walsh and Kratchovil made the crosses, and we buried them with 
their faces toward the east. 

Every forest and field held the dead of three armies — American, 
German and French. Regimental details trooped by all afternoon look- 
ing for the fallen of their commands. In our woods were the fox 
holes and hurriedly constructed dugouts where the Germans had made 
their last desperate stand. After a thorough prowling we utilized them 
as our sleeping quarters. The machine guns and rifles that littered 
the woods we mounted on the caissons as extra armament. 

In the evening we were told that Ohio and New York were ready 
to renew the attack, and preparations were made to move into posi- 
tions. At dusk we left the woods and marched all night in a driving 
rain until we reached the doughboy lines. The roads were in bad 
shape and a dozen times the carriages went in up to the hubs. After 
fighting our way through the rain for seven hours on slippery, torn 
roads we stopped in a narrow ravine four hundred meters from the 
Germans' line. 

An hour's wait in a cold rain, the men speaking in whispers. At 
last a courier, who had been trying to find us since we left camp 
late in the afternoon, caught up with us and told us the attack had 
been postponed and that rain checks were on their way. We turned 
back, as sore as men can get without committing murder. On the 
way out of that ravine the men gave their outraged feelings expression 
by talking to the horses in a loud tone of voice, evidently inviting 
suicide. By desperate and whispered pleading the officers finally 
quieted them down. 

We reached the camp we never should have left in a stinging rain, 
horses and men on their last legs. There was a general scramble for 
the German dugouts, where cigarettes could be smoked without detec- 
tion. During our absence the rain had soaked our hitherto dry tent 
sites, but sheer weariness does not insist on comfort. We flopped 
anywhere, regardless of the rain and mud and cold. 

The following night we started out again, pulling into position at 
daylight on July 28. The march was made in two feet of sloppy mud, 
the cannoneers breaking their backs at the wheels all the way. 

Our new position was in the center of an open field in front of the 
Bois de la Tournelle at the tip-top of a long, heartbreaking hill. It 
was the scene of a cavalry engagement on the day before, and the plain 
was dotted with dead horses and men. Because of severe shelling 
burial was impossible, and in the heat of the day we wore gas masks 
in order to breathe. Decency demanded it. 

We wasted little time here getting into action. At noon we opened 
up and fired throughout the night. The Germans retaliated by shell- 
ing the field and destroying an abandoned hospital a few hundred^ 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 63 



yards to our right. German planes raked every road and field, absolute 
masters of the air. 

At daybreak we resumed fire, shooting at frequent intervals all day 
long. As the German resistance tightened, their planes became even 
more numerous and nervy. Big shells wheeled in, smashing into 
French batteries at our immediate right and left and causing us to 
fervently rap wood. All around us numerous gentlemen were gath- 
ered unto their fathers, great trees were uprooted, and horses and 
men came running from adjacent woods to die in the plain. A six- 
inch rifle in back of us blew up, killing seven men. Jack Hamilton 
was shot in the foot by a German aviator. Frank Gaddis had the 
fingers of his right hand torn off by a bomb while returning from the 
front lines. 

Here for four days we kept up a brisk little artillery duel, and kept 
all hours. An attempt was made to keep the men in shape by resting 
them up alternately at the horse lines, a few hundred yards distant. 

On the fourth day of this a group of eight German planes circled 
directly over the guns at an altitude of two hundred feet and began 
to treat us rough. One was particularly boisterous, angering the boys 
to beat the band. 

According to the untruthful Chicago papers, at this point Captain 
Stone yelled for volunteers to slam the aviator with a rock. And, by 
the same pop-eyed accounts, Vic Stangel and a bird named Mac- 
Arthur rushed up, saluted, and asked permission to do the dirty work. 
But, however it happened. Battery F got credit for one plane and Vic 
for good marksmanship — excepting in the Chicago papers. 

Two days later, after some tit-for-tat shelling, during which bat- 
teries on either side of us were almost ruined, we moved to more 
advanced positions. Our last lick at the old position was a hell's-fire 
barrage that aided in the capture of Fere-en-Tardenois. 

We rattled up to the Ourcq and surveyed the desolation we had 
helped to make on the other side of the stream. Along the roads 
leading into the town lay our doughboys with their faces in the mud, 
their packs still strapped to their- backs, and their rifles clutched in 
their hands. All had fallen in the direction we were to go. 

We waded across the Ourcq and passed Fere-en-Tardenois and 
Seringes et Nesles. 

Death and desolation and utter ruin were everywhere. We gath- 
ered an idea or two of what Sherman meant, and everybody agreed 
that he stuttered when he said it. The gen suffered from an impedi- 
ment of speech. 

More bundles of what had once held life lay sprawling on the 
roadsides. Near the Ourcq a sixteen-inch shell had blown a German 
soldier from his grave. There were ghastlier sights at the river's 
edge. 



64 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



In the fields tired men were sleeping beside the dead under the 
blazing sun. It was hard to tell which was which. In a broken church 
at a crossroads there were a dozen machine gunners, survivors of their 
company, who waved their hands wearily in the direction of the 
fleeing enemy. 

"Go get 'em, boys," they smiled; "we'll be along in a minute." 

Before we moved into position that night we had reached the front 
line of doughboys at least once and had been fired at repeatedly by 
German planes. One floated over the head of the column not more 
than a hundred feet off the ground and made faces at us. Another, 
with allied markings, spattered the column with right good will, wound- 
ing several horses and men of other batteries. 

The front yard of the Chateau Fere became our position that eve- 
ning. The chateau, a rambling pile of towers and ivy-covered battle- 
ments, had been clumsily mined by the Germans in the hope that some 
American would get snoopy and look over the guest rooms. But the 
prospect of setting off two or three tons of TNT didn't deter most 
of the battery from taking a look, anyway. The explorers were 
shooed out by the French genii who were clipping the wires of the 
goof-trap, but not before Hug and Art Barker had acquired a helmet 
and a Leuger apiece. Bush McGraw and Harry Hopper emerged from 
a window resembling a Siamese Santa Glaus. Each was stocked up 
with enough objets d'art to go around the A. E. F. twice. 

Exploration of the castle, which was built in the ninth century, by 
the way, was followed by a hunt for the spoils of war. At the time 
they abandoned the chateau the Germans had about decided to leave 
the bric-a-brac they had picked up on the way through. Ours was 
the gain. By the time the battery was ready to leave the next day 
the carriages looked like an advance parade for Ringling's. Helmets 
dangled from every caisson. Two or three members were equipped 
with plug hats. A few of the more enterprising carried boudoir chairs, 
on which they rested during halts. The Krauts had also left behind 
them a file of the Manneheimer Zeitung, from which we gleaned some 
interesting dope concerning what Herr Hindenburg was about to do 
to the allies. 

But despite our happy departure, the march was hoodooed at the 
outset. For one thing, Doc Bristow appeared as we were ready to go 
in a beautiful kepi of baby blue, and was promptly pinched. So was 
Ken Hoy a moment later, when he was apprehended taking a last 
drag at a "dizzy." 

Since things were progressing, it is perhaps natural that the night's 
hike topped 'em all for utter misery and discomfort. 

A lashing, cold rain ripped into us before we had been on the road 
five minutes, and, as usual, it rained all night long. Three times we 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 65 

lost our way in the blackness of woods and swamps. Because the 
main roads were being heavily shelled we had chosen a detour that 
led from one morass to another. The roads were of slick mud and 
were lined on either side by pits and reserve trenches into which the 
caissons slipped every ten minutes. Time after time the men, barely 
able to walk themselves, were called on to pull the carriages out of 
these holes. Horses fell every few feet and men oftener. Progress 
was jerky and slow. Whenever the column halted, down went the 
men in the mud and slept. Each put his foot in the spokes of the 
wheels, to wake when the order came to move forward. Some crawled 
beneath the caissons, unmindful of mud or the danger of the battery 
starting, to get a pull at a cigarette unobserved, and fell asleep 
smoking. 

We kept up the snail-like progress until morning, when, dog-tired 
and disgusted, we halted a kilo or two from our new position. A com- 
pany of New York doughboys pulled up alongside. If possible, they 
looked more dejected than we did. All of them had thrown away 
their packs and carried one blanket wrapped about their heads like a 
shawl. In the early morning light both columns stood in the rain look- 
ing at each other. We were too tired to talk. So were they. But just 
before they got the order to shove on ahead one of them jerked his 
thumb in our direction and remarked: "There's our friends." That 
remark compensated for a year of hiking. 

Lieutenant Skinner had been up to the position making a reconnois- 
sance. He returned with the glad tidings that to occupy it would be 
suicide. Shells, he said, were popping all over the terrain. But, 
despite his pleasant predictions, we moved forward again and had our 
camouflage stretched by the time the rain had ceased and the German 
planes were busy. The position selected was to the left of the Ferme 
des Dames, a kilometer and a half west of Chery-Chartreuue. 
The entry in Bill Ackerman's diary for the night's march is : 
"Oh, Boy! If the folks at home could only see us now." 
For three days we remained in this position. Our doughboys had 
been relieved, and we were supporting infantry elements of the Fourth 
Division. Every day we gave them a nifty barrage to go out and clean 
up on the Germans with. Every night we had to get up three or four 
times and peg barrages to keep the Germans from getting the Fourth 
Division. Neither the Germans nor the Fourth Division were ever 
very successful in getting each other while in this sector. 

Colonel Reilly apparently decided to take the war in his own hands, 
and on August 7 we moved up to within a few hundred yards of 
the Vesle, which represented No Man's Land. Because of the defilade 
and the configuration of the valley beyond, we were at a point too close 
for fire into the enemy first line. Here we began the business of sitting 
tight and waiting for the Fourth Division infantry to drive the enemy 



66 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



back to a target. Horse lines were established near by, and while the 
drivers chased ammunition the cannoneers diverted themselves by 
crawling on their tummies to the top of the crest, within view of the 
Germans, for blankets and doughboy toilet articles. 

Chau-chats and German equipment were picked up on general prin- 
ciples until the position resembled an outdoor arsenal, and nearly 
everybody had a dozen blankets. 

The day after our arrival here the horse lines and the road leading 
to the battery position were badly shelled, making it necessary to re-es- 
tablish the horse lines in the position we had just left. One Battery E 
man was killed in the shelling, and Paul Stewart was wounded in the 
head by a shrapnel burst. 

While we were waiting for a chance to retaliate, somebody discov- 
ered a raspberry patch in front of the position and the war was off 
until everyone had collected a helmetful. Reserve rations were busted 
into for sugar and for a while we forgot there was a Kaiser. In addi- 
tion — let it never be forgotten — Harry fixed up a steak and browned 
potatoes that night. 

After waiting two days foi the Fourth Division to go ahead and 
win the war, we moved back to our old positions, where we could get 
a better shot at the Heinies. Our get-away was attended by a spec- 
tacular chase of a Frenchman by a Richthofen circus bird, who chased 
the allied aviator almost to the ground, and directly over us. The 
heroic machine gunners of the battery pinked a few at the German, 
and he let the Frenchman go. 

During our absence our old position had been taken over by the artil- 
lery of another division, who fought the war with their gas horns. It was 
the custom of these birds to dash madly from their beds at all hours, 
and honk wildly into the night the danger signal for gas. This was 
done on all occasions and for any reason — excepting gas. Our bunch 
being aroused, sassy remarks were usually directed at the disturbers, 
followed by an invitation to come over and get into some hand-to-hand 
stuff. Our neighbors generally had hard work making their come-backs 
audible through their gas masks, and so were always at a disadvantage. 

One night the Germans did send over some gas, and Lieutenant 
Kimball, after a few preliminary sniffs, ordered lis to get into our 
masks. But the Fifteenth, after their thousand and one alarms, 
weren't quite sure. So their top sergeant, equal to the emergency, 
rushed over to our positions and asked : 

"I beg your pardon, sir, but is that gas for us or for you?" He 
was advised to go back and see if his meter was working. If it was, it 
was for him. 

"Thank you," he said. 

On bright, sunm' days, this gang of rummies would further endeai 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 67 

themselves to us by grazing their horses around our positions. The 
horses got fat, but we got shelled. This practice was stopped when 
Birkie and Brick Bristol spotted the lieutenant in charge one day and 
described his ability and mentality out loud. 

After two days of intermittent zone fire the 77th Division was ready 
to take over the sector, and we pulled out on August 11 for a rest 
area. In this operation our horseshoe stayed with us, every battery 
in the field getting heavily shelled just as we were leaving, excepting 
our own. 

A fast six-hour hike brought us to the Bois du Chatelet, thirty kilo- 
meters back, near Brecy. Mail and hot coffee waited for us on our ar- 
rival, and joy was unspeakable once more. The following day was 
spent in inspecting a German 380 mm. gun base, popularly supposed 
to be Big Bertha herself, and in shaving up for the next campaign. 

A shallow creek near by was converted into a bath tub and before 
long we looked fairly clean again. The bones rattled merrily and far 
into the night, much to Mr. Martinus' gain. These nocturnal sessions 
were interrupted frequently by night bombers, and the whole camp 
would arise to slay some enthusiastic crapshooter who refused to 
douse the candle until he had made one more pass — usually Yuskevitz. 
Three days' rest, and we moved again. According to universal rumor 
we were starting to Paris, there to parade and have the fouragerre 
bestowed upon us by the grateful French. It was only the ninth time 
the rumor had been in circulation, but Claude Nogel "got it straight" 
from a French officer, and the battery ate it up once more. 

A stiff march, with Col. Reilly inspecting from behind every build- 
ing, brought us to Chateau Thierry, where we saw a flock of Heinies 
repairing their damage of a few weeks before. On through Vaux and 
Lucy-Bocages. Dust was tramped up in clouds, and at every kilo- 
meter our thirst became more intense. At least eighteen courts- 
martial were promised when the first Eau Potable sign was spotted 
at noon. 

Interim 

At noon we halted for dinner and Porch Climber made distri- 
bution of several cases of preserved peaches he had ingeniously 
copped from the officers' mess. Candy was sold by the Y. M. C. A. 
and we received two or three more proofs of its existence overseas. 

The march was resumed in the afternoon, and at sundown we 
reached the Marne. Our encampment was a peaceful meadow on the 
river bank — a pleasant contrast to the broken country we had traveled 
over in two campaigns. 

Troops who had preceded us to this spot had erected a diving board 
and ten minutes after the caissons were parked we were stripped and 
swimming. Six kilometers away was La Ferte, with motor truck trans- 



68 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



portation all the way, and bananas, Swiss cheese and movies when you 
got there. Farther on was Meaux, with added attractions. And Paris 
was forty kilos away. Passes were issued only to La Ferte, but most 
of the battery managed to see all three villages. 

Passes to Paris were issued in the morning to the sergeants. Bud 
Boyles and a few others. Van Dorn and Spencer Van Sickel were the 
only privates officially selected, but there were a few gents who didn't 
need passes to get around. On the first night in camp, four of these 
birds set out for Paris, the glittering and ultimate goal of the absent- 
without-leaver. A fast freight supplied the impulse and means for 
their sinful end. So they hopped it, and for an hour or two rattled 
merrily along, counting the mile posts. 

All went well until the train ducked into a tunnel and apparently 
became confused as to its destination. At any rate, the next mile post 
read 20, the next 25 and the next 32. In the meantime the train 
gathered up speed, a thing unheard of in France, and jumping off 
was impossible. It had almost reached the Somme front, where there 
was some pretty active scrapping, before the hookey-players got a 
chance to roll oif. They didn't reach camp until noon the next day, 
when they were pinched, a horrible thing in itself. The heroes of this 
spree were Buck Somers, Pete Payton, Whiskey Westbrook and Chet 
Bailey. Because of their arrest, they couldn't stand guard for two 
months. 

Our rest on the Marne was saddened by the accidental death of 
Vernon Sheetz, who drowned while swimming on the third day of 
our stay there. He was buried the same day in a little parish cemetery 
overlooking the valley. The battery followed him to his grave. 

For more than a year we had known Vern and had loved him. There 
were few men in the battery to whom he had not shown a kindness 
each day of that year ; there was not a man he had not helped over the 
rough places. He was kindly and smiling, and above all, a man. 

On the morning of August 17 he awakened early and took a plunge 
before reveille. In some way he became entangled in the sedge along 
the river's edge and sank. Art Barker and some of the rest heard his 
cries and made desperate attempts to reach him, but it was too late. 
When we drew him from the water he was dead, presumably of heart 
failure. 

In the afternoon of the next day we received orders to move. "Cush" 
Pryor and Don McArthur returned to the battery from base hospitals 
just in time to accompany us. In the evening we pulled out for Tril- 
port. The hike lasted all night, and as usual, we scuflfed through the 
dust for forty kilos in a direction exactly opposite to our final destina- 
tion. This was done to give us strong legs. 

We bumped along the newly repaired Marne railroad, past broken 
pontoons and gaping towns until we reached St. Dizier, where a rum- 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 69 

and-coffee station popped up. From there to Domblain, which appar- 
ently means water tank in French. That's all there is there. From 
there we arrived at Huilliecourt on August 20, after stepping it out 
for thirty-five brisk kilos. 

Most of the men will always associate their happiest memories of 
France with this row of houses on a village street. For one thing, it 
was the first time any of us had slept in beds for more than a year. 
The natives, too, were kind to us, and the egg suppers were unlimited. 
Until the occurrence of an unfortunate affair involving Mr. Kitt, no 
restrictions were placed on the cafes, and it was possible to fill up on 
eggs and French fries at all hours. 

After the rough-and-tumble life of four fronts Huilliecourt offered 
relaxation and rest. The women had big feet and fat forms, but by 
most of the boys they were looked upon as the daintiest propositions 
not on a calendar, and an idyllic courtship or two developed. Harry 
was the he-principal in an amorous exploit involving The Little Seam- 
stress in Pink, until Mr. Monast, in the role of Sir Galahad, put an 
end to his philandering and his nose at the same time. For a while 
Romeo Bagnuola courted his love Juliet minstrel-style, wandering up 
and down the Huilliecourt loop, plaintively asking his gal to come 
outside and play. 

Nor were the officers averse to their charms. Lieutenant Husk 
picked him a snappy brunette, but was run off her front porch the fol- 
lowing night by Private Michon, who had learned to parley in the 
States. For the rest of the officers it was a close race from the drill 
field to the mansion in the middle of town. Those who stopped 
to slick up were out of luck, as there were only three girls in the family, 
and two hundred ambitious privates. The concourse of sweet sounds 
that developed in the front yard of an evening was awful — a 
half dozen soldiers telling the poor gals what swell guys they were in 
America, and how many automobiles they had. 

Squads east and a good deal of other flub-dub occupied most of our 
time at Huilliecourt for a week. During our stay there the battery was 
again reorganized. Caisson corporals became gunners, and several 
potential wig-waggers got their chance, among them Sam Wallace, 
who resigned from everything but the army because the captain spoke 
unkindly. 

At our arrival in the village it was announced that we were to rest 
there for six weeks. We were not surprised, therefore, when on the 
ninth day of our "rest" we were given orders to ramble on. Much 
secrecy developed over our destination. Again a thousand fronts were 
suggested, from Macedonia to Lower California. The French with 
whom we lived got out maps and pointed out the Saint Mihiel sector, 
and it turned out that they were right. Our captain didn't know, Gen- 



70 A Buc/s-Eye View of the War 

eral Pershing wasn't supposed to know, nobody knew where we were 
going excepting the voting population of France. 

Bonfires and cheers attended our departure from the village, and 
the sadness of farewell was real. Old ladies bustled up to the column 
to wish us good luck and a speedy return. Others wept at losing so 
soon their bon joyeuse Americaines. It was a touching get-away, espe- 
cially when Jack Weiner said good-by to the butcher and asked him 
what time it was. 

Ivan Karlstrom — our Ivan — was a little late in starting, having 
contracted with a lady to manufacture a pie. It is also thought that 
he counted on having a free field upon the departure of the battery. 
But whatever his motives, he was picked up by a policing detail and 
yanked along by the neck for thirty-five good kilometers, his pie under 
his arm. 

At the first night's stopping place Joe Bagnuola stole the regimental 
bicycle and pedaled bajck to his true love, Lochinvar on wheels. What 
took place when he got there is not known, but after the armistice 
Joe requested discharge in France for urgent business reasons. It was 
generally thought that he intended running a news stand in Huillie- 
court. 

Three days of forced night marches brought us to Rebeuville, near 
Neufchateau. The march into town was the best thing ever undertaken 
by the battery. It appears that we were paid before starting, and a 
corporal and two first-class privates took this occasion to get slightly 
squiffed, the corporal on general principles and the two privates because 
Captain Stone had accused them of being nobly wild when they hadn't 
had a drop. 

As punishment, the three celebrants were dismounted and made to 
walk in front of the column as a lesson to all worshipers of the grape. 
Fourteen halts were called on the nine-kilometer hike, because these 
birds in front were arguing about whose duty it was to tell the captain 
where he got off. 

On arriving in Neufchateau the licker trio was assigned to polish 
carriages until dawn. 

"And remember," admonished the captain, "if they aren't done right 
the first time, you'll do 'em again in the morning." 

The three waited until they thought the captain was gone, where- 
upon one spake as follows : 

"Why, the big stiff, that's soft ! All we got to do is to throw a pail 
of water at one of the wagons and go to bed. Then they'll make us do 
it in the morning. Pretty nice." 

"Is that so?" said Captain Stone, popping out from behind the 
chariot, and calling for a detachment of the guard. Don's surprise was 
Chaplinesque. The brewer's friends worked all night. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 71 



A list of new corporals and privates was read on our second day at 
Neufchateau. Monseer Ike Sawyer, fondly counting upon recognition 
for desperate deeds at the Marne, waited upon the captain to learn 
why he was overlooked in the riffle. Finding that the captain was 
reserving the distinction of high private until Mr. Sawyer should cap- 
ture a German sausage balloon, the hero of Fere-en-Tardenois became 
pink around the gills and publicly told his commanding officer many 
strange things that could be done with first-class private's chevrons. 
He further added that he didn't want 'em in the first place. 

Other enlivening incidents of our stay in the Neufchateau barracks 
were passes to town and a presentation of "Baby Mine" by a roving 
gang in a natural amphitheater at the back of the barracks. The efforts 
of one member of the battery to be useful and obliging in the business 
of shifting the scenery brought many a snicker from the low-brows iv 
the first row. 

It was here, too, that a fair chorus lady sang "Oh, How I Hate to 
Get Up in the Morning" and gave the boys something else to whistle 
besides "Madelon" and "Back Home in Tennessee," the southerners' 
national anthem. 

On the afternoon of September 4 we were up and at 'em again, this 
time to Brancourt, fifteen kilos beyond Neufchateau. All the way Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Smith, who rode at the head of the column, was troubled 
by the hunch that we were on our way to a fire and galloped accord- 
ingly. Rabbits and eggs in this burg, and a rush call to be on the move 
by night. 

We pulled up stakes in the afternoon and marched all evening and 
until the next morning. Forty-five kilometers was the gaff. Yes, it 
was raining. Some time the next day we crawled up one cliff and down 
another, and back again to the base of the first cliff. This was our 
encampment. The climbs up and down were to qualify us as mountain 
fighters. . The roads in both directions were smeared with Swift's Silver 
Leaf lard, and one of Battery E's guns slid over the precipice, injuring 
two men. 

A little town was built around the locks of a canal at the foot of the 
hill, and here we ate, drank and made merry until evening of the 
next day. In one of the cafes the proprietor had installed an electric 
piano capable of three tunes — six sous a copy. The presence of the 
piano here was notable because it was the only one we had seen in 
Europe. Before setting out for the front, we shepherded all the ladies 
m town and threw a dance that lasted until the column was half way 
out of town. 

A night's march over sloppy, rutty roads. At daybreak we waded 
into a forest near Mandres. We had passed through Toul on the v\^y. 



72 A. Bug's-Eye View of the War 

and some of the boys were able to salvage doughnuts and coffee on the 
run. Thirty- four kilos beyond was our camp. 

Five days we waited here for the impending attack. Five days, in 
which we watered and scrubbed the nags, tried to send German helmets 
home, and named the guns. This last idea was rather niftily carried 
out. The first piece was termed "There's a Reason" and had painted 
upon the shield a Kraut, helmet and all, with his hands stuck up as 
high as he could get 'em without busting a tendon. 

The second piece had the snappy monicker of "Hell's Bell," with a 
lady in a red domino beneath the letters. "Kaiser's Kurse" was the 
alliterative title of the third, with "Amerikanische Bluff" suggested as 
an alternative when we reached Germany. The sassy nickname applied 
to the fourth piece was "The Reaper" and a blood-curdling picture of 
a skeleton with a big sword doing damage to the Adam's Apple of a 
prostrate Fritz neatly carried out the idea. Art work by Jack Walsh. 
(Adv.) 

Near this sloppy bower rested the regiment of Col. Milton J. Fore- 
man, sometime known as the North Clark Street Light Horse, or the 
Red-handed Fiends of the Border. Some visiting went on between the 
members of the battery and this doughty gang until Colonel Foreman 
learned about it and fenced his camp in to keep out the riff-raff, 
whereupon still more visiting went on. 

Now, it came to pass on the 10th day of September that orders were 
received at the battery which ran something like this : 

"The attack will be made against the German positions on the morn- 
ing of September 12. The mission of Battery F will be to accompany 
the infantry over the top for fire at point blank ranges." 

In a moment everyone experienced the same sort of feeling that 
must have come over the Titanic when she hit the iceberg. "Accom- 
pany the infantry . . . ." To us that only meant getting 
killed without getting a show for our white alley. The St. Mihiel po- 
sitions had been stormed again and again during the war, and each 
time the Allies had been repulsed with frightful losses — 1,000 men 
killed for every minute they had occupied the German lines. We pic- 
tured ourselves dragging the pieces over the trench systems with 
doughboy assistance, always remembering that the doughboys could 
flop, and we couldn't. 



St. Mihiel 

Captain Stone called the battery together, told us we had been 
selected, and asked for volunteers. Offers were unanimous and 
immediate. In the best speech he ever made in his life he told us 
what a lousy job it was likely to be, and said he knew we would 
not fail. He was plainly moved. So were we, although we four- 
flushed a bit and pretended it was routine stuff. As far as can be 
learned, it was the first time a battery of light artillery had under- 
taken a mission of this kind. Battery F was selected because it was 
thought that we would at least get to first base, somehow. 

That day we sat around with vast gloom in our buzzums and a four- 
flusher's joy written upon our faces. Everybody agreed that it was hot 
stuff, just what we were looking for. A lot of Joe Millers were resur- 
rected in this fictitious cheer, and laughed at hyenishly, ghoulishly and 
with hysterical heartiness. 

Two hours before midnight on the 10th the battery was in position 
north of Mandres aux Tours, and ready to go. In compliance with 
orders no firing was done during the night or the day following, 
although the Germans found us pretty eood targets. 

The drivers bringing ammunition to the position were under con- 
stant shell fire and Charlie Linde was severely wounded when a shell 
fragment tore through his arm. Two or three of the horses were killed 
at the same moment, the drivers cutting them loose from the traces 
and saving the caissons, all of which were loaded with shells. 

Six hours before the attack final arrangements were made between 
Colonel Donovan, commanding the infantry, and Captain Stone. Be- 
cause our stunt was without precedent. Captain Stone was virtually 
ordered to take his battery over the top and do what he darned pleased 
with it. 

So with the first gun of the St. Mihiel attack we began a nasty 
zone fire into the German trenches — we were almost on top of them, 
by the way. Most of the men remember what followed as the most 
beautiful spectacle of the war. Every rocket and light in the German 
lines went up at once. Fire dripped visibly into the trenches from 
above. White hot tracer shells came from behind. A thousand cannon, 
all around us, spit flame, and over the enemy lines burned an Aurora 
Borealis of vivid colors. 



74 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

Tanks floated up from in back of us, dipping silently amid the roar. 
In the dim light they resembled shadowy dinosauri on murder bent. 
They clanked past us, knocking- over a few pup tents, and disappeared. 
After steady firing that lasted several hours, the night lifted and we 
began to look around. The ammunition trains that had been standing 
on the roads outside Mandres were just coming up. A sleety rain had 
been falling all night long and the men were drenched, but happy. 
Spare cannoneers recklessly began to throw the equipment on the 
carriages, preparatory to following the tanks drawn up in battle line 
two hundred yards ahead. At our right M'sieur Cantini's point-blank 
battery was blazing away without camouflage or earthworks for pro- 
tection. We surveyed them for a moment with the consciousness that 
we were about to go them one better. Limbered and waiting for the 
order to go, we beheld D and E batteries with complacent condescen- 
sion. They were to be left behind, poor bums. 

At the approach of zero hour, someone gallops up with a cargo of 
biskweet and cigarettes — an unheard of thing. This dampened our 
enthusiasm somewhat, for we figured with soldier cunning that this 
was an ill omen, indeed. Always taught to beware of officers when 
they came bringing gifts, the inescapable conclusion was that we v/ere 
being fattened for some horrible slaughter. We ate in moody silence. 
The gloomy feeling didn't last long, however. Somebody slipped in 
a shell hole and the laughter was positively hyenish. In nervous 
exhilaration we got the order to move ahead. 

A long line of doughboys trudged ahead. Laboriously, we pushed 
and pulled up the hill and halted at the crest that marked our first line 
of a few moments before. The valley below was a battlefield for a 
sixteenth century artist. 

On the left was Mount Sec, peppered with tiny puffs from the bat- 
teries at our rear. A perfect barrage rolled along the valley. Several 
fat and lazy tanks crept behind the bursts, emptying one-pounders on 
the machine gunners hiding in the fox holes that speckled the plain. 
Doughboys trooped in back, their bayonets flashing in the morning 
sun. They walked like pallbearers behind the creeping tanks, their 
platoon commanders yelling through the roar : 

"Dress on the right, you lousy doughboys !" 

Here and there a man stumbled and rose no more. But casualties 
were few. German shelling was peevish and inaccurate. Ihe entire 
battery was outlined against the crest while planks were thrown across 
the trenches — a perfect target. Whether the German batteries were 
asleep or just felt kindly toward us is a mystery, as only a measly 
dozen shells came cur way. 

After a few minutes of waiting with nothing to pepper at, the trench 



A Bug's-Eye View of ttif Wajj 75 

> 

frisking details (self-appointed) were recalled, and we rattled over the 
crest into the valley below. 

It was a long, tough pull across No Man's Land, chewed up by the 
barrages of four years. Time and again the carriages and guns sank 
in the mud until the hubs were no longer visible, but we wrenched 
them out someway. With the drivers yelling and beating the horses 
over the backs with their steel helmets we passed tank after tank that 
churned helplessly in the bog. 

Halfway across the bitten, wet field, the sun burst through the clouds 
and sent a rainbow— our traditional omen of success — across the wide 
heaven. The yell that followed its appearance rose above the crashing 
^uns and sent a thrill down the lines of marching men. 

We crossed the German trenches at last, and rolled merrily down 
the Seicheprey St. Bausant road, hot after 'em. The dead of both 
armies lay along the way, although not in the numbers we had seen 
at the Marne. Through Essey to Pannes. At this town we caught up 
with the first wave and laid by for orders. The ordeal was over, and 
the strain of battle fizzed like a wet firecracker. Everything became 
highly humorous once more. 

For a time we roosted on the pieces, kidding the Kraut prisoners or 
mooching around the lately occupied positions, when a startling rumor 
was pasj^ed down the line Someone had discovered a barrel of real 
German beer in a soldatenheim ! Information that it was poisoned and 
threats of punishment were of no avail. The comic supplement rush 
for the bargain counter is a feeble comparison to our historic charge 
on the cantine. 

Inside were tins of preserves, writing paper, candy and two kegs of 
beer. These last were finished by the simple expedient of knocking out 
the stopper and rushing the men by with their mess cups at alert. The 
wassail was flowing freely when a silver-starred doughboy g'"neral 
squeezed through the narrow door. Thinking he was looking for a 
drink, the lookout had permitted him to pass. 

The gen.'s rage was terrible. 

"Stop this looting!" he shouted in his best voice of command. "Stop 
it. I tell you. All of you are under arrest." 

But the beer was still flowing from the open stoppers, and the men 
evidently figured that, as long as they were under arrest, it would be 
well to supply the general with cause. So the mess line moved forward, 
having wasted not more than a quart of beer at the interruption. 

Fighting his way outside, the general posted a guard at the door and 
ran for the military police. Ijcholding which, all of the boys made their 
exit through the window, reaching the outside just in time to form the 
emergency military police selected for the job of arresting themselves. 



76 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Not a soul remained in the cantine when the detail, headed by the 
general, opened the door. What was left in the place was speedily 
cleaned out by the volunteers. 

This pleasant interlude was ended by the order to move. For a while 
we tramped along, almost abreast of the doughboys, and still waiting 
for an order to fire at point-blank range. The going was easier now, 
for whenever the carriages stuck, a detail of German prisoners could 
always be counted upon to pull us out. Their willingness to do this 
was surprising. 

Outside of La Marche we halted and let the doughboys run up and 
take the town. The column rested with a battalion of Alabama dough- 
boys and a lurid exchange of compliments went back and forth. While 
it was going on a squadron of American planes circled over us and 
dived. Their markings were plainly distinguishable and no one was 
prepared for what followed. 

One by one they swooped over the column, raking it with machine 
gun bullets and sending the cannoneers scurrying under the carriages 
for protection. The doughboys, with less cover, sought the tress along 
the road, where one was killed and another wounded. Again the 
planes swooped down, but this time we were laying for them — 
Americans or not. 

Aided by the automatic rifles of the doughboys, the machine gunners 
opened fire, picking on the leader. After a busy moment or two he 
sailed away with his squadron. Bullets had passed through the coats 
of two of our drivers, John Rising and Eddie Edwards, and had 
spattered the road beside us, but no one in the battery was injured. 
It is supposed the aviators spotted the column several kilometers in 
advance of the rest of the artillery and imagined we were the enemy. 

Further adventures on the afternoon of the twelfth included the 
capture of a German officer and the salvaging of many "bon souvenirs" 
— di^ ss helmets, field glasses and, best of all, food. 

Htvtring the doughboys were ready to dig in, we pulled up outside 
of the village of La Marche. Stalled on the road running through the 
Bois de Thiancourt were several German batteries making a frenzied 
getaway. They were alluring targets, but the nature of our mission 
forbade our firing. Our ammunition was limited and our orders were 
to fire at machine gun nests. So we were compelled to sit on the trails 
and watch a beautiful target vanish. 

Turning our steps back to Essey, we went into position at midnight 
alongside of the First Battalion, which pulled up a little later. Horse 
lines were established near by on a river bank and the thirsty horses 
kept the drivers up the rest of the night by breaking from the picket 
line and going in swimming. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 77 

The regimental records carry this report for the day : 

"... The morale of the men was exceptional. The entire 
battery volunteered to go on this mission, and in spite of the fatigue 
caused by continuous work in extracting the carriages from shell holes 
and the absence of food, the spirits of the men were very high." 

In the morning the kitchen had not arrived. Most of our reserve 
rations were gone, the Germans had left little food, and there was none 
in sight. A diligent detail managed to police up several cans of German 
horse meat and a few raw potatoes pulled from deserted patches eked 
out a noon meal, but still no word came from the wagon train. We 
moved forward at noon, taking a position just beyond the town of 
La Marche. 

Here we captured a cow that had been playing hookey in the Thain- 
court woods since the departure of the Germans. A few Battery E 
boys aided in the cozening and entrapping of Bossie, but it was mainly 
a Battery F enterprise. Paul Johnston and a few other dairymen of 
parts managed to wring a few drops of milk out of Sophie (we named 
her Sophie), but it apparently had been curdled into limburger cheese 
by her sufferings. We sniffed at the milk, prodded Sophie's fat flanks 
and thought of our own lank bellies. Mournfully we decided upon 
her death. Our consciences were salved by the discovery of a shrapnel 
wound in Sophie's right leg, which we agreed would never heal. 

Wild Bill Sloan, who admitted some proficiency with an axe by 
virtue of his having tapped a revenue inspector over the forehead with 
one when he caught him near his still two years before, was summoned. 
Sophie was blindfolded and biffed between the horns until she emitted 
a soft, lowing cry of disillusionment and pain and sank to the ground. 
Ike Sutton sneaked up on our prostrate Sophie and neatly slit her 
throat. Following which, we hanged her on a tree. Before she could 
be skinned — while she was still kicking, as a matter of fact — we had her 
heart and liver out and on the fire. The boys were hurriedly building 
fires and rushing from place to place with a mess kit full of Sophie's 
capacious liver, waiting their turn to cook it. That night Sophie was 
stew. 

But, who'd have thunk it ? Poor, gentle old Sophie, never hurt any- 
body in her life, turned out to be the toughest old son-of-a-gun in the 
world. Ford tires would have been more edible, especially as Sutton 
forgot to skin her and chunks of fur kept popping up in the stew. The 
gravy wasn't bad, though. 

Well, we hung around La Marche for two or three days more. 
Correspondents clashed up to the positions and we got our share of 
glory. And then there was a German gun in the woods in front of us, 
the crew of which had been captured, only they didn't believe it. Thev 



78 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

kept popping away at odd hours from within our Hnes until they were 
located by an aeroplane and sent where the whangdoodle mourns for 
her dead. 

At midnight on September 15 we moved again — this time near St. 
Benoit, through which ran an indeterminate front line. The hard work 
of establishing permanent winter positions was given to us here, and 
what a squawk went up ! For seven months they had been holding 
out promises of rest and now we were getting another bunch of day 
labor. They say beefing is a sign of good morale. Our work at this 
last position proves it. Within a few days, trench systems were started, 
gun pits dug, and we were making the scrubby furze hollow look like 
a sector. 

After shifting the horse lines around half a dozen times, they were 
finally located in a pine wood near Essey. In an effort to make the 
"first hundred years" luxurious, the Germans had built rustic summer 
houses here and there in the wood. These were ripped down and 
converted into portable bungalows of no mean pretensions. Stoves 
were salvaged, shelves were installed and we were ready for winter. 

In the meantime, Porch Climber did a brisk business with the com- 
missary stores, taking a wagon to town and often being successful in 
the theft of canned delicacies. He was apprehended at this one day 
because, while posing as a member of a labor party assigned to shift 
cases of peaches, he was attempting to carry three cases at one time. 
The officer in charge of the dump naturally saw through the deception, 
reasoning that if Porch had been the member of a detail, it would be 
a tough job to get him to carry one case, let alone three. 

Here, too, Eddie Hilliard and Snitz lost the pot of apple sauce they 
had carefully prepared with the battery's allotment of sugar, and Jack 
Bayless lost his horse when Ken Hathaway traded it for the sorriest 
looking steed on the line. 

A Y. M. C. A. was opened in one of the German cabins, and a mor- 
tuary old gent made a speech, during which he recited all the poems 
of Robert Service with great elocutionary effect. The speech lasted 
two hours and fifteen minutes, after which he got down to business and 
passed out chocolate and jam. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Smith also spoke at the opening of the Y, going 
back to Valley Forge to prove our sufferings wasn't so worse. We 
didn't give a whoop for '76, and had united to tell him so, when he 
offered to sign all requests for parcels from home, which made him the 
hit of the evening per se. 

The tedium of digging was relieved at last by someone else wishing 
certain death upon us. On the 21st of September the battery was 
ordered to move our guns out in No Man's Land and take pot shots 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 79 

at the impregnable German positions at Merin-Bois farm. This was 
to be done in the enemy's view, probably to make them think we didn't 
know they were there — April fool stuff. 

After an evening of Just-Before-the-Battle-Mother sentiment, we 
moved forward. Because neither Colonel Reilly nor Captain Stone 
ever expected us to get back alive, only one platoon was taken — the 
second. The carriages were taken through a black wood where the 
crackling of a twig might have revealed our presence to the Germans. 
Captain Stone and Fred Monast rode ahead to feel out the way. The 
guns, twenty-five meters apart, trailed silently along behind. 

A few hundred meters from the target was a little hollow, from 
which there was an excellent view of the farm house, silhouetted 
against the sky. The guns were swung around, flop trenches were 
hurriedly dug, ammunition stacked, and the caissons sent back to take 
cover in a wood a few hundred yards away. Telephone wires con- 
necting the battery with Captain Stone's flop trench at the top of the 
crest were laid. The battery was ready to fire. 

A full moon sailed from behind a cloud and* the farm buildings and 
black trees surrounding them became clearly visible. At H 30 the 
battery sent a murderous fire into the farm. The smoke of the explod- 
ing shells soon obscured the target, but we knew we were killing by 
the frenzied rockets that arose from the farm. A heavy barrage of 
six-inch shells began searching the hollow for the battery, some of them 
landing within twenty feet of the guns. But the cannoneers remained 
flat on their faces, getting up to load and fire, and only one man was 
even scratched. A fragment caught Wilbur Wood in the arm, slicing 
his coat sleeve and inflicting a small cut. As the enemy fire increased 
in violence they experienced the same trouble we were having, the 
smoke from their bursts preventing them from regulating their fire, 
which became more and more inaccurate as the night wore on. 

Just before dawn the battery ceased firing. The limbers arrived on 
the second and we tore out for home, rapping wood at every kilometer. 
On our arrival at the position the prevalent hunch was that after going 
through the unheard-of stunt of firing directly from the middle of No 
Man's Land, we couldn't be killed any time. A bunch attempted to cut 
out their insurance. 

The next day we learned that the terrible fire on the farm had 
annihilated its occupants, a few of whom were driven insane and took 
their own lives. 

Those who took part in the mission were: Captain Stone, Lieut. 
Newton M. Kimball, Kline Gray, George Savage, Wilbur Wood, Lloyd 
Hall, Paul Johnson, Earl Walsh, Walter Birkland, John Stovich, Noble 
Richmond, Walter Rider, Everett Bristow, John Rising, Oscar Wester- 



80 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

ling, Roy Olson, Frederick Laffen, Eric Prichard, Donald Tower, 
Donald Byers, Fred Monast, Addison Moore, Chester Bailey, Howard 
Flagg, Charles McGee, Karl Nahowski, and Joseph Martinus. All 
were cited by Captain Stone for their conduct under fire. 

Ten days of work and sporadic firing followed. Just as we were 
getting set for the winter, rumors that we were to participate in a 
drive north of Verdun came true, and we were rushed out of the sector 
to another front. 

After a reunion at the horse lines the battery set out at night for 
Verdun. Envied doughboys rattled past on motor trucks, yelling their 
destination at us. The hike was a long and miserable one, the battery 
becoming separated at the outset by some brainy work on the part of 
Major Hammond and Lieutenant Schiffman. 

We parked ourselves in a wooden barracks the next day for a six- 
hour rest. A sack of potatoes, copped from a ration dump, was fried 
up with grease stolen from the kitchen ; the double theft bringing great 
cheer. As usual, the carriages were meticulously scrubbed and we 
raced off again when fell the eventide. 

The next day brought us to the broken towns around Verdun. 
Cemeteries were everywhere, one holding at least thirty thousand slain. 
It lay along the white way to Verdun, called holy by the French in 
memory of the countless men who had marched its length to die. The 
dead had been laid away in this cemetery with scarce an inch separating 
the graves. Thousands upon thousands of crosses marched across the 
meadow. 

At the top of a long hill we found our billets, a city hidden by a 
forest. Here we found mail and food and recent arrivals in France 
who told Dutch Weir he wasn't an original member of the division 
because he wasn't wearing enough service stripes. The usual rumpus 
followed. 

One of the chariots du pare, like the One Hoss Shay, busted down 
when we were leaving the next night, and Bobby Groves and Max 
Kovler remained behind to guard it. We didn't see them again until 
we started into Germany. 

The march that night was enlivened by a slight scrap between Pick 
Dodds and Bill Jones, which ended when Mr. Jones was bowled be- 
neath a chariot ; whereupon the column moved forward again. 

At length we rolled through Avocourt, a town consisting of a quantity 
of brick dust and a broken sign post, and were bivouacked on the morn- 
ing of October 6 in the Bois de Montfaucon. 




Oiir~s^con<f S&cror . 



iwk«'&aUA- 




The Argonne 



The usual pop-eyed rumors had reached us on the road. The Ameri- 
cans had suffered overwhelming defeat ; the entire army had been 
trapped and the Germans were cleaning up. We had never tasted de- 
feat and the rumors staggered us until we learned they had their origin 
in the entrapment of the now famous Lost Battalion of the 77th, or 
Polyglot Division, directly ahead of us. 

But if we didn't find Disaster in the Argonne, we at least ran across 
its half sister, Tough Luck. Never did the dead strew the roadsides 
and fields as they did here. A broken country, littered with the broken 
bodies of horses and men. Forests of mute despair blasted by four 
years' fire. Here and there a nervy shoot sprouted among the waste, 
regardless of man's destruction, but most of the vegetation had been 
killed by shells and gas. 

It was a hell of a place. Don Coe expressed the sentiments of the 
gang when, beholding the ruck, he said : 

"Sumpin tells me we ain't gonna be happy here." 

Don's gloomy prophecy was fulfilled when we dragged the guns into 
a battered meadow east of Nantillois, and began getting ready for 
action. Shells came tumbling from all directions, bouncing blithely 
about with a resilience that caused everyone instantly to imitate a 
cigarette paper hugging the ground. Our meager flop trenches were 
made several inches deeper by the compression of our empty bellies 
against Ma Earth. 

We had recently acquired a new looie, by the name of Hendel. This 
bird sprained his ankle a few days before, and at the cessation of the 
shelling discovered that the intolerable pain had returned. It was 
apparently very severe, for he groaned constantly and finally flipped n 
caisson back to the hospital. While this was going on a doughboy 
with one arm torn off came whistling past, inquiring for the first aid 
station. They gave Lieutenant Hendel back to us on the dock at 
Brest, just as we were starting home. 

Don McGinnis was wounded in the arm by one of the shells that 
came over while we were getting into position. The rest were more 
agile, and there were no more casualties. Several trips were made 
with ammunition that rivaled the Light Brigade's stunt at Balaklava — 
always in charge of old Bill Youngman. Somebody copped Bill's rain- 
coat, and he fashioned one from a burlap sack which made him look 



82 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

like Old Man Mars, himself, especially with the guns and knives that 
Bill always wore. 

After three days of bitter shelling, the positions were moved farther 
east, along the Cierges-Nantillois road, where hell popped in earnest. 
Enemy shelling was constant and severe. In the afternoon of October 
11th Walter Birkland was killed by a chance shell. 

He was hit at the guns and lived for an hour. In that hour, although 
he knew death was a matter of a few moments, he talked cheerfully 
and without regret. He was in intense pain, but he refused to betray 
his suffering by a word. He died like a gladiator, with a smile on 
his lips. 

His death was the most crushing thing we could have experienced. 
Tired and dejected by eight months of fighting, our thoughts were black 
and bitter toward the war and everything concerned with it, Hinden- 
burg, democracy and Wilson — they were all alike in the first moments 
of our grief. 

For more than a year we had known Walter. To the battery he 
was only and affectionately "Birkie." An impulsive, big-hearted pal, 
whose reckless contempt of danger we envied and admired. How 
near he was to all of us became more and more apparent in the months 
that followed. At each new town or during some simple little foolery 
among ourselves, someone was sure to repeat what Birkie would have 
said or tell how Birkie would have enjoyed it had he been there. 

Gradually the manner of his death softened the pain it had caused, 
and his heroism became a tradition of the regiment. We buried him 
at the echelon. There was no paint for his cross, so we carved his 
name on a mess kit top and left him alone in his glory. 

The night he was buried we moved in support of our own infantry 
to a flat valley near Fleville. Positions were established midway be- 
tween the road and the River Aire, at that time filled with the dead. 
Drenched willows hung mournfully over the stream, beyond which 
were scattered hundreds of dead men. 

Anticipating a short stay, only a few shallow trenches were scooped 
out for the attack which the doughboys were about to make on Saint 
Georges. The barrage came on the first day. As usual, we fired at 
increasing ranges for several hours until the ranges scales were up to 
6,500 meters, a sure sign that the Germans were fleeing the wrath to 
come. Only a few shells remained in the pits when the order to cease 
firing came over the wires. A great feeling of relief settled on us. 
Our tired old doughboys had licked 'em again and rest was in sight. 
The old stick of candy called the rest camp had been dangled in front 
of us before moving up. 

The cannoneers were kidding each other as they wiped out the bores, 
when Captain Stone came tearing from the telephone central. 

"Seventeen degrees and ten minutes," he yelled. "Snap into it. Get 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 83 

'em off as fast as you can. Colonel Reilly says the doughboys are in 
desperate need of our help." 

For a second we flopped around, unable to credit our senses. After 
firing at the limit of our range, we were being called upon to fire a few 
hundred meters ahead of the position. It could only mean that the 
Germans had surprised our doughboys and were running them home. 
And there were not more than ten shells in each gun pit to stop the 
mad rush ! 

All we could do was to fire what we had and pray that the Germans 
might drop dead from sun stroke. Six shells left — five, four, three — 

We were just giving up hope, when Providence came racing around 
the bend in the road in the guise of one caisson pulled by six mangy- 
nags. The poor old bosses hadn't had a meal in a month and the day 
before had been so dispirited that all the helmets and rocks and clubs 
in the sector couldn't budge 'em an inch. But now they flung their 
heads in the air and galloped, perfectly aware that lives depended on 
their getting that ammunition to the guns. 

The last shell had been fired as they pulled up panting to the position. 
One cannoneer from each section jerked two or three rounds from the 
caisson and jammed them into the guns without grease or discretion. 
The firing was uninterrupted, and the weary nailers sagged away, their 
duty done. Another and another caisson rounded the bend in the same 
way and the Germans were repulsed and our gains held. The dough- 
boys say it was the bitterest skirmish of the war. They were sur- 
prised in front of their objective by forces ten times their strength. 

That night and the day following we received a bad dose of gas 
and high explosives. For days the Germans directed a searching fire 
on the little valley, drenching it with shells of all kinds. During the 
night they bombed us off our feet, their planes sometimes barely skim- 
ming the ground while the aviator let down his tail gate and shoved 
a load of iron and lyddite into the field. 

These admonitions were wonderful incentives to labor. At each 
mess of shelling we poked a little deper into the ground until we trans- 
formed our positions into a fortress. We were plainly visible to the 
Germans, who hammered us every time we streaked up the river to 
mess. Direct hits were established on our ammunition and shells often 
lit two or three feet from us. Miraculously no one was killed, although 
we were forced to abandon the positions more than once when the 
shelling became too severe. 

On the 16th of October the enemy laid down a zone fire around the 
guns that nearly put us out of business. The first shell wounded Fred 
Monast, Harold Sutton, Ross Cline, Joe Yacullo and Wilbur Wood. 
It was followed immediately by a lot of its pals, blowing up our 
ammunition and putting us to the bow-wows generally. 



84 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Monast apparently was injured the worst, a fragment passing 
through his body and almost tearing off his arm. Joe Yacullo had an 
ugly gash in his arm, but it didn't seem to worry him much. For two 
or three minutes he ran from one section to another getting aid for 
Monast. Wilbur Wood and Ross Cline were hit in the back and arms. 
Sutton's rib was displaced or broken or something. All were bundled 
off to the ambulance, while we repaired our pits. 

Sutton streaked back to the position for a moment to clip the nice 
shiny buttons from his uniform and recover the needle and thread he 
had loaned Johnny Foster, both being rare articles to which he had 
attached a great deal of sentiment. 

An examination of Mr. Monast's effects (after we saw him tucked 
into the ambulance) revealed several cans of jam and packages of 
cigarettes he had thriftily held out when disbursing commissary sup- 
plies. The fortuitous find tempered our sorrow at Mr. Monast's 
suffering, as they were unobtainable anywhere. 

In the days that followed the enemy shelling became more bitter. 
They even wheeled up a 42-centimeter to have some fun with, and nearly 
scared us out of our shoes with the darned thing. Thirty kilos away 
we could hear the shell leave the gun. For some minutes thereafter 
(it seemed) there came a growling, snarling, eat-'em-alive roar that 
is comparable to nothing except a 42-centimeter shell with your name 
and address carefully marked upon it. 

With a crescendo of all the ungodly moans and whistles and unholy 
shrieks of hell, the shell would plump into Fleville. Up would go the 
First Baptist Church, chin itself on nothing in particular, and descend 
steeple first back into the town. Or massive trees with clods clinging 
to their roots would sail slowly heavenward, spin once or twice, and 
plump back into their native woods. 

All afternoon Old Man 42 Cent, paged our little gang until our nerves 
were nearly shot. One, landing near the position, tore a hole thirty-five 
feet across and twenty deep, jammed in our ears with the concussion, 
and sent a piece of scrap iron into the second section gun pit that must 
have weighed four hundred pounds. 

"Well," said one of the cannoneers, peeking at it from his position 
in the bowels of the earth, "that's the first time I knew they used six 
inch shells for fragments." 

A cheerful incident of the shelling occurred when a second looie 
of another battery heard one of them coming and simply knew that it 
had his number. He was holding a mess kit full of beans at the time, 
but he didn't wait. Running with his head twisted backward over his 
shoulder, glaring at invisible, albeit, audible death, he ran plump into 
the river, from which we had to fish him out with a long pole. This 
caused many a long needed snicker, especially as the shell was a dud 
and landed nearly a half-mile away. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 85 

A battery of national army artillery had pulled out when the field 
became too hot, but must have landed from the frying pan into the fire, 
because they came trooping back. This brought our courage up to 
sterling value in the desire to show the kids what seasoned veterans 
we were. 

Whenever we were under shell fire and could behold the open- 
mouthed expression of the other battery, it became our custom to fire 
a few shots during the bombardment to show 'em our sang froid. Dur- 
ing one of these performances the Germans began to bounce seventy- 
sevens right into the camouflage. The gunners straightway flopped on 
their tummies and fed the guns amid the splinters. 

"Give 'em another one," gasped Johnny Foster, shoving a shell into 
the breech, "before it's too late." He meant, of course, before they 
killed us, and the unconscious humor of the remark gave us comic per- 
spective for the duel. We made a big hit, incidentally, with the national 
army battery. 

The horse lines suffered their share of shelling in this sector, but the 
level-headed administration of Karl Geisendorfer enabled the drivers 
to get in a little spare time, much of which was devoted to certain games 
of chance operated by Mr. Quisno to his own great emolument and 
gain. 

When things got dull at the positions. Lieutenant Wegner was there 
to pep up the boys by appointing details to fuss up around the gun pits. 
Under his watchful eye we did everything but plant rose bushes around 
the guns. Fuses had to be separated from shell, long lanyards had to 
be ready for use and the niceties of warfare observed. At each detail 
Nig Hall, Kline Gray, Doc Bristow, George Savage and Nick Coss, 
composing the village choir, would raise their voices in acclamation of 
Lieutenant Wegner, who complained bitterly at their adulation. 

Rumors — rumors — rumors. There were more of them at Fleville 
than anywhere on the western front. The Kaiser had surrendered, 
the British had captured Berlin, and a thousand others. Captain Stone 
handed us his opinion of the war's end nightly. He timed it for the 
following summer and was willing to wager a flock of francs on his 
opinion being the real dope. A Salvation Army lady operated in Fle- 
ville and Chatel-Cherery and we snared a number of doughnuts from 
time to time. Once in a while a commissary truck ventured up. Oh, 
yes, another thing — we took a bath here in a sauerkraut factory. 

Well, we finally pulled out of Fleville, rejoicing and exceeding 
glad. It was so gol darned mean there that we supposed any place 
would be preferable — even the front line. Here we erred, as will be 
shown. 



Sommerance 

After a nasty skip-stop hike we reached the hillside in front of 
Sommerance, beyond which lay the outposts. A big smash was being 
planned and we were surrounded by all the ordnance in the world. 
The artillery concentration compared with that of the Champagne. 
We were in line with the reserve machine gun positions, which littered 
the fields directly in back of us. But Sommerance was as hot as Fle- 
ville- — if not hotter. 

But there was saving grace — the earth here was as easily chipped 
out as cheese. We had reason to thank the gods for this bit of luck 
twenty minutes after we moved in. Shells were popping like rain, 
especially gas shells. They came over in dozen lots, whistling a sad 
refrain as they cleared our heads and slapped down in back of us. 

Our position was on a gentle slope over which peeked the steeples of 
Sommerance. Remembering our experience at Fleville, and sensing 
something of the same kind here, we proceeded to make them impreg- 
nable, copping sand bags galore and banking them around the guns. 

Every day when the sun went down and we began streaking to mess 
the Krauts would get ornery as the dickens, slam-banging all over the 
lot and filled our little glade with mustard gas. To which we responded 
not a whit, our guns being held for the big attack. Failing to get a 
rise out of us, the Germans would peck around at night. By judiciously 
poking one eye out of our rabbit holes we could see the high explosive 
flashing a few feet ahead of us, sending the acrid smoke into our faces. 
Then would follow a debate as to whether we should seek shelter in 
the main flop trench or remain in our holes. A big G. I. can would 
smash on the position, the fragments would r-r-rip through the pup 
tents and our minds were made up. With one accord we would grab 
our shoes and dive into the deeper and better 'ole. Gas invariably 
followed this cussedness, with the result that we wore our masks for 
hours at a time. For a week we didn't sleep at all, but worked ahvay. 

On the 27th of August Jack Bayless, Johnny Foster and Roy Gullick- 
son got a good whiff of mustard gas apiece and were sent back to the 
hospital. 

With all this hard luck and prospects of plenty more, we began to 
fidget and wish we could pop a few back at 'em. Also we dug plenty 
deep. Most of the sections lugged timber from somewhere and made 
dugouts. And then, to help things along, we ran out of food. Old 
Mother Hubbard was a wholesale grocery dealer compared to Eddie 
Hilliard and Snitz. We didn't even have a bone — didn't have nuthin'. 



38 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Al Sabin brought up some bread from the echelon one night and with 
some grease that we discovered we subsisted for a while. But it re- 
mained for Sammy Katz, old Caruso Katz, to save our lives. 

Sam, who had left the battery to play Santy to the doughboys, had 
been operating a Red Cross canteen under severe shell fire for several 
days. Learning of our plight, he sent up everything he had. That 
night his office was blown sky high, but Providence, remembering that 
Sam had done a good deed, spared him to us. 

The big attack came off at dawn November 1. A chunk of chocolate 
and mail were distributed in the few moments before the opening gun. 
We ate the chocolate and read the mail by sneaking into the dugouts 
and holding matches for each other. All of us felt that the angels were 
expecting us, for some reason or other, possibly because of the severity 
and accuracy of the shelling we had experienced. After the ceremony 
of reading mail — and how unhappy were the birds who didn't get any — 
we took a solemn pledge to each other that each man would stay with 
the guns until he died, whether he was hit or not. There was no chance 
of getting reinforcements. Everybody agreed to stick. 

The big guns behind us opened first and were fired upon in turn. 
Several shells wheeled into the battery, but the German counter-battery 
guns were soon silenced by the murderous fire of the American 
heavies. The shells aimed at us began to sizzle over one at a time and 
we could imagine the German gunners desperately trying to serve the 
guns while the shrapnel and H. E. rattled down on their tin hats. 

In back of us the machine guns began a vicious barrage of their own. 
It had been in progress when one of our looies, mistaking it for aero- 
planes firing at us from overhead, charged down the sections and 
ordered us to shelter, just as we were loading the guns. We pretended 
we didn't hear him and he raced on by and found refuge in a flop 
trench, where he loudly called for a telephone. 

For eleven hours we pegged the wickedest barrage ever delivered 
in the war. There was not a moment's rest in this time while we sent 
a curtain of fire in front of two regiments of marines. Its progress 
was slow and inexorable, one of the guns firing smoke alone. Nothing 
could survive. Dead robins were found lying beside mutilated Ger- 
mans in the path of that barrage. Shells of all description and fuses of 
every color were used in the day's fire. At 2 :30 in the afternoon we 
were out of range. We had blown the Germans from supposedly im- 
pregnable positions and run 'em bow legged for twelve kilometers 

During the night Charlie Schell was hit by a machine gun bullet in 
the shoulder, but, faithful to our agreement, stuck — screwing fuses and 
doing all the work possible. Addie Moore was badly gassed, but re- 
fused to go to the hospital, electing to remain with the gang. 

A couple of men went to breakfast at a time. Buck Somers was 
with the first gang and was nearly killed in consequence. While shov- 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 89 



ing Sibley away from the stove so he could toast his bread a shell 
whanged in and nearly took poor Buck's leg off. Pale and weak from 
loss of blood, Buck thought up all the things heroes did under the cir- 
cumstances and finally asked for a cigarette, which he smoked as they 
carried him away. He also gave us his blessing. 

Only a mighty big gun could reach us now, and we lolled around 
with a feeling of vast security, chinning with the prisoners as they 
were brought in. Mr. Pryor discovered some Germans with something 
on their hip which Mr. Pryor immediately transferred to his interior 
with excellent results. Harley Tucker captured "Max of Baden," 
a German police dog which the battery immediately adopted, although 
Max would have no owner but Harley. 

It was a strange feeling to be safe — to know that no German was 
wheeling up a little gun and getting ready to blow you back into the 
flops. We were just discussing it when something swished from over 
the hill and a shell crashed into the second section aiming stake. 
Where fifty men had been idly discussing the victory a second before, 
there was not a one to behold. The fifty were peeking from as many 
shell holes and flop trenches at a cloud of black smoke drifting away 
from the section and feeling around to see if their feet were ready 
for the test. 

"That wasn't fair," said Art Williams, who, being a Y. M. C. A. man, 
did not indulge in the rich expressions that we used to indicate our feel- 
ings. We waited for a moment or two. No more shells came and we 
gathered that some curious doughboys must have pulled the lanyard 
on a captured German gun just to see if it w^as loaded. It was. 

The supposition was, that after our heavy work, we were at last to 
be farmed out for a rest. This grew out of Major Rowan's advice to 
Perc Matter, then suffering from fever. 

"Cheer up, old boy," said the maj., "we'll be out of this tomorrow." 

We were out- — blithely busting our necks once more to catch up with 
the retreating Germans. We were caught in a pouring rain going 
through Sommerance and stood on the road for several hours while 
the officers doped out the way. 

The cannoneers discovered an old shack, whither they repaired to 
smoke. With the rain running through the seive-like roof they dis- 
cussed and planned a w^eek's orgy in a dining room, to take place apre 
la guerre. Beefsteaks a foot thick, surrounded with parsley and 
potatoes neatly speckled with paprika, fancy salads and desserts all 
were thought up and wrangled over. So seriously did the gang take 
the discussion that several brisk scraps started when someone would 
oppose beans to another's asparagus tips in cream as an imaginary 
breakfast. We were brought back to life when Art Donnals growled, 
when asked for his luncheon suggestion for Friday: 



90 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

"Raspberry. Gimme some stew and I'll be satisfied. I'm hungry." 

All of us were. We hadn't really eaten in four days. 

The night march was made through Saint Juvin and Dead Man's 
Hill to Thenorgues. On the way we encountered a truck loaded with 
bread, operated by a genial driver. Not only did he pass out the bread, 
but bulled us along with the information that the German plenipoten- 
tiaries had crossed the line and the war was fini. He spread himself 
as he told the rumor, investing it with many plausible details. Fed up 
though we were on rumors, we swallowed it whole, along with the 
bread. 

At Thenorgues we flopped for an hour and then resumed the weary 
march. On to Buzancy, where we were overtaken by some Y. M. C. A. 
ladies on ponies. As usual Brick Bristol and Doc Evans addressed 
themselves to the ladies' male Y. M. C. A. companion, tipping him off 
to certain of his characteristics and touching lightly upon his family 
tree. 

Through Bar to Marricourt. Here we found barracks, very lousy, 
but they had chicken wire beds in them. No time was lost in hitting 
the hay. 

Everything would have been pleasant indeed had it not been for a 
snoopy German aviator who nearly bombed us to death. We were so 
darned tired we refused to move from our barracks, although they were 
his target. 

"Gosh !" sighed Harry Cureton wearily, "I'll never feel safe until we 
get back to the front." 

We rested in Hardcourt all night. In the morning we shoved off. 
The horses were at the end of their several ropes. So were the men. 
It was out of the question to go further as we were. 

So the batteries were split up. Battery F took all of the horses of 
Battery E that could walk and several of their men. Thus re-equipped, 
we set forth. We continued through Authe, Brieuelles to Les Petites 
Armoises. At Brieuelles we encountered Colonel Reilly, now a dough- 
boy general. He gave us greeting with none of the sternness that 
usually distinguished his remarks. Not only that, but he ordered us 
fed at a doughboy kitchen. 

Near Les Petites Armoises we went into position in a cold, wet hill- 
side. The poor old nags could barely make the grade and Pappy Le 
Prohon hopped on a horse to show us how he used to cut up when he 
was a lead driver. 

John Stovich, who felt a bit derisive at being thus displaced from his 
temporary mount, made it his business to station himself behind Lieu- 
tenant Le Prohon and twit his ability under the pretense of urging the 
horses forward. 

"Get it a lead driver," yelled John. 

Pappy wheeled around. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 91 

"Who was that man ?" he demanded, looking at Stovich. An interest- 
ing competition in profanity followed, with frequent assurances on the 
gart of Pappy that, despite his years and shoulder bars, he could lick 
any man alive, and furthermore, would. 

Our old practice of carrying ammunition a mile or two followed, 
although we knew there was little likelihood of our firing. In the morn- 
ing we carried the ammunition back and pulled out. None of us had 
slept more than an hour. 

The advance was continued through Tanney to La Neuville the next 
day. On the way we ran into some Algerian assassins eating rice and 
horse meat by the wayside. Roger Baker, whose title of Caliph of 
Bagdad was supposed to be efficacious in mooching a meal, was sent 
forward as emissary. Several of our prominent Southerners followed, 
swallowing their pride along with the horse meat, tendered by the 
gracious coons. 

At La Neuville we got a chance to wash. The civilian population 
had remained, and in broken German and French they told us some 
remarkable stories of their conquerors. At night we made position in 
an orchard outside the town. 

Again we were called upon to dig, although we had had no sleep in 
days. Just as we had the positions made, we were told to move. The 
profanity that arose was beautiful in its originality and force. Ken 
Hoy sprung some brand new ones when he was ordered to assist Kar- 
nath in folding up Lieutenant Wegner's blanket roll. 

We made our get-away from La Neuville in pitch blackness, rolling 
along the road toward Sedan. The men held on to the caissons, falling 
sound asleep as we rambled along. 

We came to a mined bridge that had crossed a little river before the 
Germans blew it up. The drivers gave a look and rattled on into the 
cold stream. The cannoneers, walking asleep in back of the caissons, 
were up to their waists in cold water — and it was a cold, cold night. 

But do you suppose the first victim would tip off the column? Not 
on your life. 

Joe Percival sneaked over to the other side of the stream, dripping 
wet, and hid himself in the bushes to await developments. One by one 
the cannoneers splashed, swore, and joined him to watch the rest. 
One by one came our unsuspecting and dog-weary pals — Keith Gris- 
wold, George Lee and poor old Bill Branch, all of them and a lot more, 
right up to their necks in freezing water on a freezing night, while we 
hooted and yelled in maniacal glee. 

In the morning of the same day we were well on our way to Sedan. 
We hooked up with a bunch of First Division doughboys on the road 
and learned they were trying to beat us into the city. We were dirty 
and bedraggled and sick unto death. In seven days we had nine 
hours' sleep and about five meals, but we weren't going to stand for 



92 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



any monkey business like the First Division copping the credit for 
Sedan. So we gave our legs a shake and pushed ahead. 

Beyond Chemery we hit a broad highway with a curtain of ever- 
greens that hid us from the Germans. We were almost on top of them 
now and going to beat the cars. Passing a stretch where the trees had 
been lopped down, the Germans spotted us and sent some shrapnel into 
the road. We separated and ran the gauntlet a carriage at a time. 
Although in several cases the horses and men plunged through the 
smoke of a shell burst, we galloped through without injury. Dough- 
boys lolling along the road cheered and gave us godspeed. 

We rattled down the road, which began to take the appearance of a 
railroad embankment with a steep slope on either side. At the little 
town of Chehery the road came to an abrupt end where the Germans 
had mined the embankment. It was impossible to pull the carriages 
down the steep sides of the embankment, and there was no reason for 
uncoupling the limbers and turning back. We sat and waited for 
orders. 

A thick bkuiket of fog hid the valley below us. Doughboys were 
down there fighting and we could hear their officers 3''elling commands 
above the chatter of the machine guns. Reserve battalions of infantry 
stood in the road beside us. 

Slowly the mist lifted. Here and there we could see the doughboys 
stringing along and flopping every now and then to take a pot shot at 
some barely discernible figm-e moving around on the opposite slope. 
Through glasses we could see the Germans plainly. 

Apparently they could see us just as easily, for in a moment a shell 
roared in and buried itself at the foot of the embankment. Anothe 
sung over our heads, completing the bracket. Then the whole shell 
family landed on the road at once. We were helpless— couldn't run, 
couldn't duck, couldn't do anything. In the first three or four minutes 
they had killed fifteen of the horses of our battalion. A few of the 
doughboys standing along the road were killed by the same volley. 
Dick Patton was wounded by a shell that burst directly over him and 
toppled from his horse. He was taken into a stone barn, where he was 
wounded again by a shell that burst outside the door. 

We stuck beside the guns with wild eyed murder going on all around 
us — the drivers because no driver ever leaves his horses ; the can- 
noneers because they expected an order to unlimber and fire. 

Pappy Le Prohon came running through the shell bursts. Appar- 
ently he was dead set on becoming a captain or an angel and didn't 
care which. He had flung aside his steel helmet and his gas mask, 
and for five minutes walked up and down the road, never batting an 
eye when a shell hit close behind him, and surperintending the work of 
getting the horses and men out of danger. This he accomplished by 
cutting the horses loose and running them down a little path to a 



11 

A 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



ravine below the road. The guns and carriages were left on the road. 
Had it not been for Pappy's quick action the battery would have been 
destroyed in the first few minutes. 

The Germans, seeing us leave the road, began searching for us be- 
hind the embankment with light and heavy batteries. No place was 
safe. Several more doughboys and a few more of our horses were 
killed in the shelling that followed. Pappy walked unconcerned among 
the horses and men, directing their removal to a clump of trees at the 
top of the hill. Despite the presence of a good deal of gas in the valley, 
he refused to wear his mask, as it interfered with his giving orders. 
As a result he was badly gassed. He refused to go to a hospital until 
the battery was withdrawn from the front. Chief McGee was wounded 
while he was assisting Pappy, and later was taken to the hospital. 

Paul Johnston, the first sarge. ; Ernest Edwards, Chief McGee, Dios 
Golden, Johnny Casper, Karl Nahowski, Kline Gray, Harold West- 
brook and Homer Pryor were cited for their conduct in the emergency. 
Pryor was made a corporal for his work in helping Dick Patton and 
assisting in getting the battery out of danger while under fire. Who 
says heroism doesn't pay? 

The shelling continued for three hours. With the removal of the 
horses to a safe place, the battery scattered to whatever afforded shelter. 
It was an afternoon of coincidences. As fast as a group of Battery F 
men left the sheltering side of a barn or crawled out of a flop trench, 
someone from the First Division was sure to be killed in the place they 
had abandoned. It began to get spooky. 

The only man who didn't stir from his hole all afternoon was Harry, 
the Saloniki Kid. Nobody knew where he was. His kitchen stood 
unguarded in the field, easy meat for all the marauding chasseurs and 
doughboys in the sector. Only by accident was he discovered. 

During a frenzied session of shelling some doughboys and a few 
French soldiers sought refuge in the rear of one of the stone houses 
along the road. One of the Frenchmen was carrying a German helmet 
and after everyone felt secure he began trying to sell it. 

"Ouinze francs," he said, exhibiting it to a doughboy who was fran- 
tically attempting to get closer to the ground. 

"Listen to this guy !" yelled the doughboy in amazement. "Here 
they're pegging shells at us like confetti, and this dude is trying to sell 
me a helmet. Can you beat that for business instinct ?" 

"How much does he want for it ?" asked a voice, apparently coming 
from the bowels of the earth. 

Everyone looked around at this unexpected remark, but were unable 
to locate the speaker. Finally someone espied a little stone dog house, 
built into the ground. Harry's scrawny hand extended from the tiny 
door — how he ever got into it nobody knows — and vraved ten francs 
in the direction of the owner of the helmet. The latter recognized an 



94 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



uncompromising character, for he grabbed the ten and Harry grabbed 
the hehnet together, drawing it back into the dog house. Thus did 
two kindred souls meet and have communion on a battlefield. The 
Frenchman looked like a Greek, so the old proverb about their meeting 
would probably apply. 

Just before sundown the battery pulled the horses back into the road, 
hitched and tore back two or three kilos. Becavtse of the death of our 
horses two or three trips had to be made. Were we happy to get out 
of that joint ? Ask us. 

There was a great hulabaloo at our arrival in the reserve position. 
For one thing, they had been picked wrong — the slope running the 
wrong way — and Kline Gray and his gang began telling all the officers 
where to head in. Then Jack Weiner caused some disturbance by re- 
fusing to dismount from a supply wagon at the command of Lieutenant 
Le Prohon, to the great amusement of the battery. Moreover and 
moreover, staid old Bill Youngman refused to beat one of the horses 
at an officer's request. And then, last of all, the officers rolled into the 
holes dug for them by Raymond, Walter Johnson and Karnath — the 
faithful — while they told us to dig twenty-six degrees in solid shale 
rock. We had had no sleep in a week, and didn't see the sense of 
digging that deep. However, we did as we were told — we always did 
— and rolled in at midnight. 

A little sleep made us feel a lot better. We began to move forward 
again on the following afternoon. The position selected this time 
was near the town of Bulson, about four kilometers away. It took us 
until the next morning to move two miles and a half. One reason was 
the condition of the horses ; they were fagged to death. They were so 
tired that we were ordered to discard all our extra wearing apparel and 
all our blankets, unless we wished to carry them. The horses were too 
weak to carry the drivers. We had only gone a few hundred yards 
when it became apparent that the horses were a hindrance rather than 
a help. We cut them from the traces in consequence, and the guns 
and wagons were moved entirely by hand. 

Prolongs were taken from the carriages and attached to the coupling 
devices. With the battery working in two shifts all of the carriages 
and guns were dragged up a hill almost one mile long — a heart buster. 
Orval Dean enlivened things on the way up by poking fun at the lieu- 
tenants, just as Harry Cureton had called one of 'em names an evening 
or so before on the dark road to Chemery. 

Battery E preceded us into Bulson a little after midnight and suffered 
heavily from some well directed cross roads fire. Direct hits were 
made on two caissons and they lost in killed and wounded. 

Shells were dropped on the cross roads every time a caisson moved 
forward. We were moving at five minute intervals and supposed the 
Germans were firing at the same rate. It appeared later that a German 



'^ A Bug's-Eye View of the War 95 



posted in the town as a repatriated "civilian" was signaling the German 
guns. 

At any rate, when it came time for the kitchen to run the gauntlet, 
Harry was carefully coached as to how to skin past the cross roads. 
It was explained to him that shells were falling at five-minute cadence 
and to sneak through in the intervals. Characteristically, he got it 
gummed up some way and when the shells dropped looked at his wrist 
watch and said: 

"Now we waitee five minutes." 

Waitee five minutes he did, with the result that the shells dropping 
behind the kitchen as he ducked past nearly blew the kitchen into the 
zoo. Harry was indignant, blaming the timing arrangement on the 
major. 

The horse lines were found to be untenable because of heavy shelling, 
and were moved. Jack McLean, attached to us from Battery E, was 
the only victim. 




«A^ -'*^ On the Lzy'iathan 

The one in the mldih is Max. 





we meet ccocdn 
Kockford^ i 



L,a Guerre est finie 



We pulled into position at dawn on the back of a crest overlooking 
the city of Sedan. Our doughboys had entered the city the night before 
and our guns were trained on the heights on the other side of the 
Meuse. 

In the morning word came that we were relieved, although not much 
stock was taken in the report. We had been "relieved" too many times 
before — so many times that it was a stock joke that the Rainbow 
Division relieved the Forty-second, the Forty-second relieved the Rain- 
bow when they were tired. 

But relieved we were this time. We left at noon, breaking all records 
for tearing up a position and getting away. We fiew out of that sector. 
Outside of Bulson we got rid of our ammunition and our cares at the 
same time. Every M. P. along the road slipped us the glad tidings 
that we were on our way to Bordeaux, nevermore to work or worry. 
We didn't believe it, but we liked to hear it. 

We kept up a maddening hike until we reached a large farm house 
labeled Mon Idee. It was our idea, too, and the entire regiment 
bivouacked in the barnyard. That was early in the morning of the 10th 
of November. 

A few newspaper correspondents drove up during the night and put 
up at a farm house down the way, where some of the boys from the 
battery got a chance to talk to them. And what do you think they said ? 

That the blooming war was over! 

Of course the gang tendered them the merry razoo, and asked them 
who they thought they were kidding. The correspondents insisted it 
was on the level and that the German delegates had already crossed the 
line and signed up. This was so nearly a repetition of what the bird in 
the bread truck told us that we laughed them to scorn, whereupon they 
got sore and called us a bunch of boneheads and intimated a burning 
desire to see us choke. 

We forgot it and sneaked back to our cold pup tents — and they were 
cold, no mistake about that. When we awoke in the morning those of 
us who had taken off our shoes found they were frozen stiff. All the 
pounding in the world wouldn't bend them. We finally built a fire and 
thawed them out. 

A fast march with several detours brought us back to Harricourt, 
where the rumors of an armistice were more prevalent. They were 
strengthened by Vic Stangel, who had been roaming around on his 
motorcycle. Still we scoffed. 



98 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



In contrast to the sleek faces of the men who had remained in Harri- 
court, we were actually frightened at our own appearance. All of us 
had lost bo-koo pounds in the last month of war, and our faces were 
unshaven, and sunken. Some mail and sleep, however, and we were 
stepping high again. 

The cheesy billets of Harricourt, most of them almost totally de- 
stroyed, looked like palaces. Some of them had fireplaces and we 
spent our first night off the front in wondrous content, determining not 
to rise for reveille, even if Johnston busted a lung yelling at us. 

We didn't, either. At about 10 o'clock we arose and began fussing 
around the horses and carriages. At 11 o'clock a barrage which had 
been banging away for several hours stopped. 

The captain called a formation, gave us a rest, and said : 

"I have just received official news that an armistice has been signed."' 

There wasn't a peep from the men. We were still so tired we didn't 
really give a whoop. 

"Hooray !" said Bill Schabloske. "I'll bet we get an hour off from 
the stables today." 

"Three lousy cheers," added Gullickson. 

Both remarks saved the day by adding the essential emotional touch 
— that of laughter, at least. Thereafter we went out and scrubbed the 
carriages. Little by little the staggering news began to sink in. It was 
probably because there were no manifestations of its importance that 
we did not get it at first ; but as we shined up the carriages and scraped 
the guns we began to perk up and speculate on what we would do first 
when we reached home. 

The following remarks are typical : ^ 

"Gosh, I'll bet their hog wild back home." 

"Wish we could get a drink around here." 

"Well, I'll be an umpty-ump-ump-ump." 

"When will they send us home?" 

And best of all : 

"Well, the gosh-blinked war may be over, but the duration ain't — 
and that's what we enlisted for." 

There was wonderful fidelity about the last remark. It came to light 
when a heavy schedule, including an inspection, was announced for the 
next day. It was also pointed out that the battery was not going to 
"slump" just because there wasn't a war any more. 

T^e inspection came off as ordered. An incident that deserves to 
be forgotten happened at the same time, due to lack of understanding 
between the officers and the men, or the men and the officers — either 
way. However it happened, the trouble was adjusted and things went 
on more smoothly thereafter. 

We discovered physical manifestations of the armistice on the night 
of November 11 when bonfires blazed up and down the line all night 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 99 



long. A sassy spectacle was provided by the ignition of all the rockets 
in the sector the same evening. Our celebration took form in the re- 
moval of the burlap rags from the windows. For four years they 
had held back the light from the aviators of both armies. 

All of us felt, spiritually, like men who have been bedridden for years 
and by some miraculous and sudden chance are regaining the use of 
their faculties. There were little symptoms of hysteria everywhere. 
The oldest Joe Miller brought a laugh ; enforcment of the petty details 
of discipline were irksome. We were on edge. 

It was natural that we supposed we would be sent home among the 
first, as we were among the first to reach France. Nor was our 
optimism dissipated when we were given orders to move ahead a week 
later. Bets were that we would reach home by Christmas. Thanks- 
giving, said some. 

Well, anyway, we were piled over to Saint Georges, the town beyond 
Buzancy we had captured November 1. There the rumor of our return 
home dropped with a dull, sickening thud — as newspapers put it. There 
must have been a thousand horses racing all over the place, waiting to 
be watered and fed. And, best of all, they were ours — for keeps. 

Along with the horses they gave us sixty or seventy new men and 
almost that number of officers. 

No curses sprang to our pallid lips. We took 'em and shut up. The 
only casualty of the occasion was "Pete" Payton, who gave the dumb 
owls the once-over and said, ever so sweetly: 

"Well, gents, I see by the papers the war's over." 

Henry Ludwig, who was an expert in the medical line, put a neat 
dressing on Mr. Payton's nose. 

The new men were a little bashful at first ; that is, they wouldn't 
try to get through the mess line more than four or five times and 
appeared at reveille at least once a week. A few of them discovered 
they were unknown to the sergeants and never did show up to a forma- 
tion, notably one William Moulds. He might have been John Doe 
from the way the son-of-a-gun ducked assemblies. 

We started for the Rhine, a long, long walk. By day we slogged 
along. At night we slept on the frozen ground in pup tents. On the 
second day of the hike the cooks were late in preparing breakfast, and 
Captain Stone told Langlands where he could head in as a result. 

Hearing the dialogue, and feeling that it was up to him to say some- 
thing, one of the new lieutenants attempted to further reprimand 
Scotty. He said something about the Germans stacking the fields with 
firewood and asked why the mess serg didn't police it up. 

What happened was funny. It involved Nick Scheuer's busting up 
the chariot, for one thing, and a lot of good natured razzing. The 
lieutenant, anxious to facilitate, thought it would be a good conversa- 
tional opener to ask where the coffee was. It would have been had 



100 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

he not addressed himself to Rip Tower for the information, thereby 
flipping from the frying pan into the fire with Mr. Tower's neatly 
turned remarks. 

If it's of any interest, we followed the army's old rule that "the 
longest way around is the shortest route to wherever you want to go" 
all the way to Germany. 

Through Landres-et-St. Georges, Bartheville, Aincreville, Doulcon 
and Dun-sur-Meuse. Gosh, what a hike ! Up hill and down, around 
corners, through cold, wet woods. 

At last we hit Breheville, where we were billeted for the first time 
since leaving Harricourt. We waited here a day while we were 
"re-equipped." In the American army, "re-equip" is the code word 
for the ceremony of distributing one pair of size 49 pants to the birds 
that don't need 'em ; a pair of puttees to the guys who need shoes ; and 
a size 2 blouse to the gents whose trousers have busted apart. Excuses 
and pleasant smiles are issued to the rest. Dog robbers and quarter- 
master sergeants are completely outfitted, however. 

Just as we were leaving. Lieutenant Morris, one of our new officers, 
was mistaken ^or one of the missing privates and was ordered into line. 
Some cheerful repartee followed. 

Lissey, Reuvilliers, and Montmedy. The last named was a pretty 
little city on the Belgian frontier, with an abrupt fortress rising from 
the center of the town. It was the biggest fortification we had ever 
seen, and those whose legs held out (a few of the inveterates like 
Ouisno and Addie Moore) rambled over the ramparts before dinner. 

The officers were billeted in the chateau of the fortress. We were 
comfortably quartered in a Zeppelin shed as big as the Northwestern 
depot. On the side of a building across the street a German artist 
settled the question of who won the war in sassy caricature, done in 
color. All of the belligerents were represented in the painting except- 
ing Germany and the United States. Most of us thought it was pretty 
slick. 

We crossed the Belgian border on November 21, moving to Saint 
Leger that night. Never, not even in the United States, were we re- 
ceived with greater enthusiasm. The inhabitants of the town, fully 
aware of the awful chance they were taking, made us sleep in their 
beds and prowled their cellars for hidden vintages. They slapped us 
on the back. They tried to kiss Sylvester, the band leader, and a lot 
more things, besides. 

Those of the battery who didn't cop beds slept on mattresses-^;- 
honest-to-goodness ones — in the school house. We had a great time, 
all right. Billiard tables in all the cafes, and some kind of a pink soft 
drink — the Germans had pinched the rest. We sure made merry in 
Saint Leger. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 101 

In the morning we scampered on to Arlon. Flags everywhere along 
the roads on a bright autumn day, American, Belgian and French, 
but principally American. All of them had been made overnight, and 
looked it; but we appreciated the compliment all the same. In most 
cases the American flags were ingeniously patched together by the 
local Betsy Rosses with a square foot of polkadot, representing the 
stars, and finely striped red and white dress material. vSome were 
more pretentious, having five or six large stars with a corresponding 
number of stripes, usually a foot wide. They waved them from every 
window and church spire. They called us their saviors, and again 
threw open their homes for our entertainment. Only the shopkeepers 
accepted money, and they took our dough with apparent reluctance. 

The band lined up in the main drag and gave a concert of French 
and Belgian patriotic airs. The entire town turned out and yelled 
themselves hoarse, veeving I'Amerique until their collars melted or 
they broke a lung. 

Incidental to our stay in Arlon was the discovery of a German 
commissary store, stacked to the roof with helmets and Gott Mit Uns 
belts, and food galore. Compared to the miserable conditions we 
had undergone, the experience was like stepping into the Biltmore 
from a coal mine. 

Not to be forgotten were the ladies, many of whom parleyed Eng- 
lish. They learned our language, they said, when the news trickled 
into Belgium that the United States had declared war. Classes in 
English were immediately formed so the students might be able to 
talk to their deliverers when they came. They told us something of 
the suffering they had experienced. Not much, because, they said, 
they belonged to yesterday. 

It was natural that we would be moved as soon as possible. Arlon 
was too good to last long. Colonel Reilly gave 'em hell when the 
order came, but his opposition to the order availed us nothing. We 
rolled out of our swell homes on the morrow and hit 'er up through 
a lot of towns that sounded like tonsils, to Brouch, Luxembourg. 

We took a labyrinthine route, lengthening the journey bo-koo kilo- 
meters. This, however, was not as severe a hardship as it appeared 
to be. For some time now the Third, or motor battalion, had been 
eating up the miles in their nice, roomy Fierce-Arrows. This slick 
trick was put over by learning the destination of the battery and 
then dropping out of the column under the pretense of wrapping a 
legging. The first truck that came along was hopped into, and the 
trip was cut by five or six hours. This stunt required ingenuity, tact 
and skill. Some of the boys got so high-toned after a while that they 
wouldn't ride in ordinary trucks, but had to have railroad coaches 
and Cadillacs for their transportation. 



102 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

Of this latter class were Bush McGraw, Sam Wallace, Brick Bristol 
(the heroes of the pop encounter) ; Don Coe, Herb Mooney, Ike 
Waldo, Roy Rystrand, Earl Thomas and Sibley, being the constant 
offenders. Bob Barnes was always starting, but was too fat to wedge 
into the truck. 

All of the motorized boys wore shoes through which their toes 
poked about an inch. This was for the emergency of detection, in 
which event it was planned to exhibit their bare feet and ask how 
in blazes they were going to walk in those. It worked every time. 



Luxembourg 



Brouch — what an awful joint ! 

In general orders we were ordered to be exceptionally courteous 
in our dealings with the natives of Luxembourg. We were reminded 
that they had been under the heel of the oppressor, that they were 
a gentle, cowlike race, quick to reciprocate kindness. 

Behold the results: 

From the first day we set our composite foot into the country — 
our loved allies — they began. They got us coming, going, and stand- 
ing still. They gypped us, frisked us, dangled us upside down and 
shook it out of us until a franc wasn't worth any more than an as- 
pirant's black bar on November 12. We were something Santy hung 
on the tree for the jolly natives. Not only did they hold up the mark 
to its pre-war value, but they claimed the franc had depreciated, and 
with magnificent gall they charged us the same prices in good francs 
they had been asking in worthless marks. 

A demitasse of chicory — lukewarm — no sugar — cost thirty cents. 
A scrawny little chicken that looked like it had the flu, ten big, cold 
American bucks. A goose, a little more obese, thirty smackers, pay- 
able in American coin. 

Our allies! In the Pig's Eye! An American profiteer would have 
died of penury and starvation in a week. 

Thanksgiving rolled around, and we were still at Brouch. The gov- 
ernment had issued us our usual rations of goldfish and corned Bill, 
so we decided to forage around for ourselves. 

Nick Scheuyer discovered that he was born two miles from our 
billets and ducked over and saw his family. After a big pow-wow 
we were able to nick Nick's relatives for one of their pet pigs. The 
pig cost several hundred dollars, causing us to ask ourselves why we 
didn't buy a Ford instead. But we had the dinner, and it was a darb, 
in army patter. Harry did himself proud, nearly killing one of the 
replacements who sought to sneak through for seconds. 

We lived in the Opry House, which was honored that evening by 
the visit of a Sheik from a Far Country, who appeared to be slightly 
squiffed. For some time he entertained us with spicy anecdotes of his 
career, and topped off the evening by adding further punishment to 
Christ Nicholas, whom he was pleased to term the King of Greece. 
The crime for which the king met punishment at the hands of the 
sheik was the theft of several biscuits which he hid away after the 



104 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



manner of the red or fox squirrel. They were discovered by Bobbie 
Groves, who ate 'em and then helped administer a cleaning to Nicholas. 

At the instance of Buzz Snyder (at home a theatrical maggot or 
magnate or something) we decided to produce something before we 
left the opry house. Captain Stone thought it was a grand idea, and 
work began on the show forthwith. 

llie first thing was to name it — we were approaching this thing ana- 
lytically, you understand. Then we picked the actors, cut up the 
scenery to make costumes with, and started at the lines. Finally we 
evolved a plot, and we put it on the next evening after a whirlwind 
advertising campaign. By George ! it was Thanksgiving night we 
opened up — but that's a detail. 

Anyway, all the properties w^ere fixed up by Buzz, who had seen 
all those things done in Champaign, by Heck! Footlights were im- 
provised by vising candles and steel helmets. The show was to take 
forty-five minutes and several bows. 

Unfortunately all the talent became temperamental five minutes 
before the curtain rose, and it was necessary to go out into the audi- 
ence and draft a new cast. 

The first act was a humdinger, and the chorus, which cavorted around 
in front of the belles of Brouch (whom the officers brought), made a 
big hit. Gullickson and Gush Pryor were co-stars. Misses Mooney, 
Sibley, Nahowski, Art Donnals, Earl Thomas and Ed Clark made a 
snappy chorus in their short skirts and bare tummies. 

The next act was kind of — well, extempore. But it got over. 

More temperament popped up in the last act, and the show was 
ruined. It was awful sour, men, but we got a hand. 

After squads east and west in Brouch for several days, and guard 
on the picket lines at night, sometimes enlivened by Reich's weird 
yarns of gents coming back from the dead (not to mention Mickey 
Doolin's comment that "thot kin be doon"), we folded our tents like 
the Arabs and piled out to Burglinster, a town of fair wimmin. 

Thence to Osweiler, where Ouisno fell down the well, supposing 
it to be a ration dump. A typical hick town. 

Up and doing in the morning. Dashed over to Echternach on the 
Luxembourg-Germany frontier. Here Don Coe, aided by a few of 
his friends, discovered a wonderful goat that could jump over a barrel; 
and a king to go along with it. He reported his find to Captain 
Stone. 

Over the river into Germany. Some movie men were the only 
spectators of our march. All of us wondered what the attitude of the 
Germans would be, and were surprised to find them hospitable to the 
point of cordiality. Food was cheap and plentiful. Compared to the 
prices we had been paying in Luxembourg, the Germans gave it away. 
It was pointed out by the captain that this attitude only indicated how 



A Bug's-Eye Vikw of the War 105 



ready they were to shove a knife in our ribs, and we became rather 
wary. 

Our first night in Germany was spent in the Httle chapel of a town 
not far from the border. According to precedent, our guns were 
parked about five miles away. 

A canvass of the neighborhood revealed some eggs and all the 
Eisencooken we would eat. This dish immediately became popular. 
They were German waffles. We liked 'em so well we began yelling 
for them a kilometer outside of every town we reached. Eisencooken 
became synonymous with Baby Doll after a while. 

A fistful of money wasn't worth a dime. What the Herren and 
the Frauleins wanted was soap and chocolate. With a bar of each 
and a pair of shoes anybody could take a personally conducted tour 
of Germany lasting a year, meals and board thrown in. It followed 
that birds heretofore considered strictly agin' the use of American 
Family had to be watched night and day, lest they run away with the 
soap issue for the entire batter^ and never come back. 

So we soaped our way through Alsdorf, Dockendorf, through Bit- 
burg, a pretty little town full of saloons; Lissengen, Gerolstein and 
Pelm, stopping for a night at each town. 

Nohn, where the cannoneers, who had been walking on their bare 
feet, got some shoes — just some. Through Adenau, a long and beau- 
tiful town in a deep valley, with precipitous roads and mountains. 
We took a rest at Ouiddlebach. More Eisencooken. More soap. 

Stiff drills at Quiddlebach and nightly trips to the Schloss at the 
top of the mountain, or Adenau in the valley. Addie Moore was 
pinched in Adenau by no less a gent than Major-General Flagler be- 
cause he had lost a button from his blouse on the long trip from the 
trenches. Addie was fined thirty bucks for his misdemeanor. 

A sergeant's mess, started in the Champagne, was re-established in 
Quiddlebach and dropped again under the terrific razz of the privates, 
who used to steal the sergeants' beefsteaks. We got word here of 
Nick Richmond, who was taken severely ill in Brouch. He had left 
the hospital and was on his w^ay home. Congratulations followed. 

Further adventures in Ouiddlebach included The Strange Case of 
Allen Edmonson and the Leaking Roof ; the threatened extinction 
of one Tarantino, and the plot on foot to do the same ; the Confes- 
sion of Leo Fincke, with details concerning how he happened to be 
busted from ammunition corporal, and many other strange events. 
Sutton was made a sergeant. A camera club was organized. Mr. 
Kratchovil, who was an excellent mechanic, learned to play on the 
accordion, causing great anguish. And all in four days. Nor should 
it be overlooked in passing that the passion for Eisencooken reached 
its limit here; several birds getting themselves in trouble so they could 
get on kitchen police and steal flour for their manufacture. An 



106 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



Eisencooken foundry started a brisk business next door to the kitchen, 
heavily subsidized by the little Greek, who loved to park himself in 
the only warm room in the house between the only two good looking 
wimmin in the town, and got away with it by reason of his generous 
gifts of rations and supplies. 

Many bets were lost by the gentlemen who wagered we were going 
home by Christmas, chief among them being Brick Bristol, whose 
incorrigible optimism cost him bo-koo francs during the war. Paul 
Johnston and Walt Rider were the winners. 

We stretched our legs over the last lap December fifteenth, follow- 
ing the River Ahr through winding clefts and tunnels until we reached 
Dernau, a little vineyard town fifteen kilometers west of the Rhine. 

A wonderful town, that Dernavi. Before our arrival its principal 
industry was the distillation of wine. They were hard at work at 
this very thing when we pounced in, late at night, and asked to be 
shown the guest rooms. Following which, we studied the principal 
local industry for a while and rolled in. 

In the days that followed we were nearly happy. Even Bill Dutton, 
the worst grouch alive, was ready to admit that if we could kill all 
the horses and a few generals he knew, not to mention a couple of 
corporals, it wouldn't be a bad place, at all. 

The people were plain, rugged folk, who worked with their hands 
and didn't know what Prussianism was. They treated us well, and 
we fraternized pretty freely. Veronica and "Peek," Ken Hoy and 
"Kleiner" — gosh ! a lot of the boys were sweet on some dames. And 
the officers — oh, well, anyway, it was a great town. 

First thing we knew it was Christmas. The measly boxes prescribed 
by G. H. Q. came along with a few special request packages, requisi- 
tioned about a year before. We had another big meal of pork, rigged 
up a Christmas tree and gave everybody trick presents — oh, we pulled 
a lot of slick stufif. Somebody came through with some Y. M. C. A. 
products, most of which went to the kids in our several billets, along 
with some toys and candy. Big day, all right. 

That night individual celebrations started. Recalling our last Christ- 
mas and looking forward to our next, it was a happy event. The 
letters of our folks reflected the same spirit. 

The great old team of Mooney and Coe, ably assisted by Joie 
Percival, staged a pageant on the banks of the Ahr. Pick Dodds, 
Bush, McGraw, Bob Brunet, Joe Kratchovil, Bob Barnes, Cush Pryor, 
Walt Rider, Kieth Griswold and others took the leading parts. 

Inside the Wacht zur dem Ahr there was an informal gathering 
presided over by Colonel Redden, at which Parke Brown of the Chicago 
Tribune spoke. He was wildly greeted by one of his former associ- 
ates, they say. Teddy Van Dorn brought his band up. There was a 
dive for Roy Olson's Christmas boxes. Buck Somers, being a Chris- 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 107 



tian, wrote from the hospital that somebody else could have his, and 
then came back in time to eat it himself. 

Harry Hopper, Karl Geisendorfer, Chick Buell and Dick Burritt 
had all come back from hospitals and colleges and everything, and 
we had a big reunion. Yep, it was a grand day, sho' 'nuff. 

From Dernau we shoved off again, this time landing in permanent 
quarters at Ringen, six or seven kilometers east. 



Ringen 



It was the custom, whenever we moved after the armistice, to tell us 
we were going to more commodious quarters. No Joe Miller was 
ever more hoary than this one. For a time we would have been more 
comfortable in a wall safe than the nine-by-two rooms they gave us, 
along with nine or ten birds to sleep with. But we were an adaptable 
bunch, and it wasn't long before we were sitting on the world again, 
having as much fun as we had at Dernau. 

A few still hankered after their old friends and made weekly visits 
back to the town with gifts of soap and chocolate. Ed Fahey was one 
of these Colgate knight errants, sallying back one day to win fair 
Tilla, the pride of Local No. 5 of the Tunnel Workers' Union. Major 
Rowan apprised him in the act and Mr. Fahey got out of Dernau 
two jumps ahead of the bleed hounds. 

As things settled down, General Headquarters began thinking up all 
sorts of things for us to do. There were reviews without number, 
most of them in anticipation of the day when the regiment would be 
presented to General Flagler. Our officers wanted it to appear that 
we were all literate, and spent much time coaching us on our age, 
names, what army we were in, who we were fighting, and our views 
on Free Silver. At the end of two months we were able to answer 
them all. 

They had several weddings in town, accompanied by a parade of 
Krauts in Prince Albert coats and rented opera hats. Harry Hopper 
and Pick Dodds punched in a regular high hat at one of these events, 
supposing it to be collapsible. At another the boys dropped in and 
persuaded the ladies of the bridal party to pass up the ceremony for 
another party the boys were having. 

Then there was Frau Finchen and Musty Suffer and the Kleiner 
Mann from Beller, called The Bondsman by reason of his physical 
resemblance to a municipal court hanger-on. The aforementioned 
characters sold a watery variety of beer and a fiery compound of fusil 
oil and wood alcohol. They built up quite a custom among members 
of the different batteries in the neighborhood. 

The other attractions of the town were a few frowsy frauleins, 
each able to juggle a kitchen stove or an anvil, or drag a wagon load 
of sugar beets to Ahrweiler. The only exceptions to these beefy 
coquettes were the two daughters of the town doctor and Katrina, a 
beautiful girl of seventeen. Everybody tried to get cozy with Trina 
at some time or another during our habitation of Ringen, but she would 



110 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

have none of us. Her suitors, in the order of their appearance, were 
Sig Stewart, Walt Rider, John Magee, the eminent bath house mag- 
nate, and CharHe McKeown; but gifts of soap and chocolate did not 
prevail. We liked her so much that there was some talk of sending 
her to school along with the French orphans whom we adopted. We 
even got her old man out of jail. 

Bob Barnes was always reputed to be the "schoenest" of the Doc's 
daughter until Rip Tower upset the dope and Bob at the same time. 

There were various other trifling little amours despite the published 
orders on fraternization. Ike Sutton was attracted for a time with 
the charms of Mrs. Horse Shoer Smith, who did Ike's washing. Glen 
Bryan, who hid out from the detail snatchers pretty well, admired 
Mrs. Horse Shoer Smith's sister. 

We trained all the frauleins to say good-morning to the captain and 
the lieutenants when they came around to inspect the billets, and 
further interested them in the arts of civilization. 

Theodore Roosevelt died, and we stood at attention with the rest 
of the A. E. F. while a salute was fired in memory of the Greatest 
American. 

We were getting along into February now, and more things were 
devised for our entertainment. The drill schedule was lightened a bit, 
and they even prescribed an hour a day during which we were com- 
pelled to play. 

"Play!" one of the officers would say in a terrible voice, sending 
us through the motions of basketball. 

Teams were formed among the batteries and among the officers. 
Battery F was universally successful. Regimental and divisional foot- 
ball teams were formed. Homer Pryor representing the battery on 
the Rainbow Division eleven. 

The Y. M. C. A. began to send personal workers to the batteries. 
By a coincidence Joe Percival's sister Ted was assigned to Battery F. 
Miss Percival was the champion fudgemaker of Germany, and we 
whiled away many a pleasant evening in the mess hall, with Ted pre- 
siding at the piano. With his sister in the same town, Joe almost 
reformed. 

The government began giving us leave to visit France, ten per cent 
of the battery going at a time. They were the first leaves given us 
since our arrival in France 'way back in 1917, and the boys hopped 
to 'em. About one-third of the battery went before the lid was clamped 
down again. 

We had our third epidemic of the flu. The first, back in Lune- 
ville, almost ruined us, although Jack Lathrop had the only serious 
case. This time Chick Buell and Shelby Lee hovered between life 
and death for several weeks. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 111 

It was during this epidemic that we lost Colonel Redden, who had 
been in command of the regiment since the reassignment of Colonel 
Reilly in the Argonne. It was hard to take. 
Colonel Redden was a man. 

At the organization of the regiment he was the captain of Battery A. 
He was promoted at once and became the major of our battalion, 
taking command of the regiment upon the promotion of Colonel 
Reilly. 

Before we sailed for France he called the battalion together, and 
in a talk that thrilled every man who heard him told us something 
of his ideals. He clung to the old ideas of chivalry and noble con- 
duct, and begged us all through the war to remember that we were 
men and Americans. Sometimes we were thoughtless in our relations 
with the French; he reminded us of their sufferings and the ideals 
that had drawn them into the war. Under his influence the men were 
more courteous to the conquered than circumstances demanded, and 
in most cases we conducted ourselves toward the women of France 
as we would have French soldiers act in America. 

He was simple and sane and considerate in his treatment of the 
men, always making them realize that he was acting in their interests 
all of the time. We lost a friend at his death. 

The entire regiment went to Coblenz in motor trucks to attend his 
funeral. He was buried on one of the high hills overlooking the spot 
where the Moselle flows into the Rhine — one of the beautiful places of 
Germany. 

More and more rumors of our return home came in. We were 
ordered to shoot up all of the ammunition we had carried with us 
from France. Much to the consternation of the villagers, the guns 
were rolled back of the town and fired at point blank ranges. The 
natives, believing the war had started all over again, locked them- 
selves in their cellars. 

Captain Stone jimmied up several thousand dollars' worth of pota- 
toes buried for preservation in mounds which were likely targets. 
Any regret that may have been caused by the destruction disappeared 
when we learned the spuds were the property of one of the kaiser's 
many cousins. 

We simulated warfare for General P^lagler, who hadn't seen any 
scrapping to speak of and was curious to see what it was like. The 
attack was made along the Rhine, the doughboys advancing under a 
rolling barrage as of yore. Everybody was reluctant to stage the show 
for superstitious reasons, but a general is a general, and it came off 
in grand style. Two men were killed in the course of the spectacle- 
men who had gone through the war without a scratch. We felt a 
little resentful about it, but the general thought it was the old pepper. 



112 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 

Spring was in the air, and with all the manifestations of our going 
home we began to cut up all kinds of capers. We gave two joint 
receptions to ourselves with Battery E, at which many strange things 
happened, including the manufacture of a Rainbow cocktail. The 
officers attended both parties, and a high old time was had. Speeches 
were made by Captain Bokum, Lieutenant Bradford and Captain 
Stone, not to mention Pick Dodds and a flock of others. 

Well, one thing led to another. When Kid Stanton and Percy 
Hallier came back from the hospital we knew it was all off and that 
we were on our way home. Sure enough, along comes an order in the 
middle of March to throw a final review for General Pershing. 

It was a divisional affair and we were coached up for it every day 
for a week. All of us learned our proper names and numbers again 
and what country we came from. The review was staged in a wide, 
picturesque plain between Remagen and Sinzig along the Rhine. We 
shined our helmets and got "prettied up" and started off. Trucks were 
provided and we were thrown in them. When they didn't start, some 
fun started which caused Lieutenant Brewer to think we might start 
cutting up before the general and be held in Germany for another 
two years. 

After a bumpy trip we were formed in the plain. The general didn't 
come for two or three hours, and standing at attention became monot- 
onous. The men began sneaking smokes and throwing their helmets 
at jack rabbits, and more school kid stuff. We were reminded again 
of the horrible fate of the Twenty-sixth, our sister division. The hours 
passed. Someone commented on the wondrous authority that could 
hold 27,000 men in one place for four hours. 

"That's all right," interposed Charlie Jones. "He's gonna wait 
longer than that for my vote for President." Which restored our 
perspective a little. 

The general came at last and cavorted through the ranks on horse- 
back. Our band did all the honors. It must have been good, because 
Sylvester received a letter from Pershing telling him what a slick 
outfit it was. 

The general dismounted and inspected the regiment, stopping here 
and there to ask questions. After coaching us up on our right names 
and the color of our eyes and everything, some of the officers were 
horribly surprised when the general stopped in front of them and 
asked sensible questions, asking them what percentage of disease ex- 
isted in their commands and other remarks denoting common sense. 
All of the officers who had brushed up on expected subjects and were 
prepared to answer right off the bat that their middle name was 
Julius, got stage fright and were royally "bawled out," to our great 
enjoyment. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 113 



The next day we threw a mounted review for the general. Joe 
Kresmark nearly gummed it up, but the general didn't see him coming 
out of the cafe, and things went along well. At the end of the first 
review General Pershing made us gang up while he said a lot of nice 
things about us. This dissipated the impression then current that he 
hated the Forty-second Division and was anxious to see us all choke. 

At this point we will have to turn backward a few weeks and get 
in an account of our celebrated minstrel show. It was given in "Frei- 
burg's" (no relation to Art) and was by far the most pretentious 
thing of its kind ever pulled ofif by the battery. 

The cast included Karl Nahowski, Bob Groves, Buzz Snyder, Herb 
Mooney, Old Man Sibley, Earl Thomas and Pick Dodds. Joe Per- 
cival, Bud Ruling and Johnny Foster assisted in serving the audi- 
ence with lemonade, and Joe Kratchovil played on his accordion until 
he was thrown out. Programs were printed and half the popula- 
tion of Germany was there. 

Now we'll go back to where we left off. 

After the review came an order to turn in our horses and equip- 
ment and sit tight for traveling orders. Captain Stone was in Belgium 
on leave, and Lieutenant Brewer handled the work of turning in the 
carriages darned well. Despite the peevishness of the million and 
a half inspectors, one of whom caught Lieutenant Gill putting sugar 
in the beans, the work went on without a hitch. 

The carriages were stacked along the road from Ringen to the 
Rhine. The horses went to a remount station near Andernach a few 
days later. All of the condemned horses v/ere sold in Arweiler, some 
of them bringing ten and fifteen thousand marks, notably "General 
Pershing," our prize stallion. Thirty thousand was offered for him 
and refused. He went to the Third Army. 

It was a wet, miserable ride to Andernach, lightened only by the 
fact that we were getting rid of the gol-darned nags for keeps. The 
drivers got back late at night. 

We had fixed up a little party for ourselves in recognition of the 
event, which signified to us the end of the war. Since the armistice 
we had been unable to celebrate on their account. Nobody can be 
happy when he has to take care of a dozen horses. 

Our first move was to visit Lieutenant Brewer and separate him 
from the mess fund. This was done tactfully, a committee of respect- 
able sergeants doing the deed and allowing Lieutenant Brewer to think 
the arrangements had previously been passed on by Captain Stone. 

The money in hand, we hitched up Jack Weiner's mules and romped 
over to Dernau, where we filled up the wagon with barrels of light 
wine and beer. Some schnapps were tucked in for the battery braves. 

Some Battery E boys went on a similar errand. A conference was 
held on our return, and we decided to merge the parties. The officers. 



114 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



who had been in conference, decided the parties ought to be held 
separately to avoid possibilities. We compromised by sticking to our 
original plan. The only bath tub in Ringen was subpoenaed for the 
party, and a committee visited the leading Germans, informing them 
to remain indoors during the "grosse spectackel" and "fenster break- 
ing" which was sure to follow. They did, willingly. 

It was a cold, windy night, wet and blowing. Promptly at nine 
o'clock the whistle for assembly blew and we fell out in the streets. 
After a long snake dance, full of portent, we descended on Batterv' E's 
mess hall. 

The bath tub had been filled with red and white wines, mixed, with a 
little schnapps, vinegar, pepper and lemon extract thrown in for sea- 
soning. The result had the Rainbow cocktail skinned to a frazzle. 

At the announcement that the horrible concoction was free, it dis- 
appeared in the twinkling of an eye. The bath tub was refilled six 
times in ten minutes. But no one had adequately judged its con- 
tents. Before it could be refilled again the boys were off with a 
flying start. Some of them wanted to start for Berlin that night. A 
few were in favor of shinnying up the church steeple and copping the 
bell. Some more formed a Jacques Society, finding their precedent 
in stories of the French Revolution. Literally, the emancipation party 
was a howling success. 

Everybody made speeches, Sarge Geisendorfer's toast to the de- 
parted horses bringing doAvn the mess hall. Al Danzig was singing 
in fluid German. Even Charlie Geardink was looking for someone 
to scrap. Pat Little and Murrel Funderburk started a song boosters' 
contest and were ousted. Two or three irrepressibles, who believed 
themselves to be battlers and wanted to show the boys their wares, 
were sat on. 

The party, in its natural evolutions drifted into the street, where 
Lieutenant Bradford, who was on an arresting rampage, began throw- 
ing the guests in the guard house, where they were immediately aided 
in escaping through the window by Paul Stewart and Nick Schueyer 
and a few more huskies. Back in the street, they were arrested anew 
and had to escape all over again. There was a regular merry-go-round, 
running through the guard house doors and windows. 

A number of the party sought the comfortable interior of Peter 
Drodten's wirtschaft, having a rather neat plan up their sleeves. You 
see, Pete had adorned the walls of his cafe with two large and expen- 
sive steel engravings, representing the surrender of Sedan in 1870. 
Time and again we had warned him to store his pictures in the attic, 
but he was too proud of them and of what they meant — the old son- 
of-a-gun. 

So a detail of vigilantes slipped into the cafe, intending to turn the 
pictures to the walls. Pete came rushing downstairs in a night gown. 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 115 



Beholding us at work on his art collection, he screamed for six patron 
saints and four cops while he started for Bill Sloan and Karnofsky, 
who were engaged in turning the first picture around. Interpreting 
Pete's gesture as a threat, Bill draped the first picture neatly over his 
head, which protruded through the back of the frame. It was done 
on impulse, but the irony of using the Surrender of Sedan on old 
Prussian Pete made it look deliberate. It certainly was a large gob of 
poetic justice. 

Stanley Yuskevitz was operating the other picture when he heard the 
crash. He also framed on Pete, leaving him with another lavalliere of 
wood and glass. 

Mike Connor was preparing to add a stein to Pete's collection when 
Lieutenant Bradford rushed into the room. 

"Arrest that man," he yelled, pointing to everybody in the room. 
No one knows yet how it happened, but when Lieutenant Bradford 
recovered consciousness he acted like a man who sits up in bed and 
picks at the coverlet. It is supposed a portion of the ceiling fell. 
Yuskevitz still denies that his bandaged hand was anything but a 
coincidence. 

All of this took place late in March, and that party was our last 
blowout, excepting those privately conducted by M'sieur Dutton and 
his friends at their billet. After a week of stalling, the long anticipated 
order to move was read to us. A great deal of fuss developed over 
cleaning up our billets and turning in government property, most of 
which fell into the hands of the Germans. 

In this connection, Mr. Bush McGraw made a clean-up in the 
peddling business, he being the broker for such articles as biscuits, 
blankets and boots. In our enthusiasm to get away, several articles, 
found at the last minute, were chucked into haystacks and under 
floors. 



Homeward Bound 

We left Ringen in tears. Our association with the townspeople had 
been more than friendly, and they really hated to see us go, notwith- 
standing the trouble we caused them. Old Mama Radamacher, always 
railing at the soldiers who broke her windows, chased her boarders 
down the street for two blocks to press a couple of dozen priceless 
eggs on them. The girls wept and carried on, and Musty Suffer and 
his sister nearly broke up the column by rushing out of his cafe and 
entreating the boys to write often. 

We scampered through Beller at a fast clip, all fearing that a slip 
had been made and the order would be rescinded before we could 
get on the train. Dad Rohr was the only one who wobbled, and he 
•couldn't help it. At Beller the Bondsman nearly wept as he called 
farewell to his many debtors and friends. 

Remagen on the Rhine was the first stop. We were decently billeted 
in the resort hotels along the river and for the first time in our young 
lives given nothing to do. The hike had been made under full pack, 
and all of us were tired, and there was little "stepping." We loafed 
around, played diabolo with the kids and waited for the train. 
Y. M. C. A. excursion boats were running to Cologne, the A. W. 
O. L.er's paradise, but nobody was tempted. 

After one day's wait we hiked to Sinzig and were loaded aboard 
American box cars — fifty to a car. Doughnuts, chocolate and cigar- 
ettes were fairly hurled at us in a sudden burst of generosity on 
somebody's part, the train jerked, Ted Percival ran along the cars 
waving good-by, and we had kicked the dust of Germany from our 
hobnails forever. 

We were at Conflans and Metz in the morning. The latter town 
captured our interest because of the number of times we were in 
position opposite it in readiness to attack Verdun next. We went the 
old route we had been over so many times before under less happy 
conditions. Outside of Paris we were shunted over to the northwest 
and rolled back into Brittany. A little trouble had developed on the 
way over the display of our homecoming signs and they were taken 
down. But at the first sniff of the ocean we'd like to have gone wild, 
hanging out signs and slickers and everything we had. We reached 
Brest on the afternoon of the third day, a record trip for a French 
train. The old boats were there. Even the blustering Brittany winds 
and rains didn't matter now. 



118 A Bug's-Eye View of the V/ar 



They hiked us up a long hill to Pontanazen, a camp having for ils 
object the debasement of the American soldier. As nearly as possible 
he is turned into a lower animal and is supposed to shut up and do 
what he's told. For the enforcement of this high principle military police, 
many of them coons, are stationed everywhere, waiting and praying 
for the slightest infraction of a goofy order. If somebody yells "Who 
won the war?" they gloatingly grab him and do their best to have 
him confined in France for six months more. They fill each newcomer 
up to the neck with propaganda, how one entire shipload was jerked 
back in the harbor because of one man's sassy remarks to an M. P. 
Then they bathe the poor sufferer by detail, "decootieize" him (a 
process that consists in endowing you with twice as many as you had 
in the first place), and throw a lot of clothes at you that don't fit. You 
are then ready for home. 

Daily there are details for the unwary, presided over by a gentle- 
man from the Quartermaster's Corps who used eating tobacco and 
profanity. And in ironic contrast are the ships riding in the harbor 
that are to take you home when the camp commander gets around to it. 
We slopped around Brest for a few days, meeting Pappy Le Prohon, 
who had been invalided there after Chehery, and Jack Houston, who 
left us a private and showed up a captain on General Pershing's staff. 
Red Hartigan, who had been on detached service in Lorraine, also 
joined us at Brest. 

At last they told us we could beat it for the boats. We pulled out 
early in the morning, practiced how we'd climb on the boat and what 
we would tell them when they asked us for our names, and finally 
formed for the march to the dock. The band led the way with a big 
splash, tossing their red banners around and scaring the French to 
death. At the end of an hour's march downhill we formed on the dock. 
Red Cross gals came along and presented us with woolen socks full of 
one thing and another, and there was a canteen on the dock putting 
out coffee. We were going on the Leviathan, which, because of in- 
sufficient docking space, was tied to its anchor in the bay. A choppy 
sea came up and we were forced to sleep on the dock until it abated 
a little. 

It was a big night. Some of the men were given passes; the rest 
didn't need them. In a few moments a lot of us had plenty of pro- 
vision against the cold and were making merry all over the town. 
Colonel Reilly smiled genially at the celebration and even reprimanded 
a Red Cross official when it was suggested the boys might quiet down 
a bit. Freddie Smith, the go-get-'em correspondent of the Chicago 
Tribune, visited the gang and wrote a nice piece about us for the 
papers. 

In the morning we climbed aboard a leaky lighter, packed so tightly 
that the imprint of the next man's coat buttons were visible on our 



A Bug's-Eye View of the War 119 



backs for a week. If anything had happened to that lighter — oh, boy! 
Nothing did, though, and we piled aboard, a bunch of naval officers 
giving us a keen once-over for bulges that might indicate bottles, 
which they hoped to confiscate for themselves. Up six or eight flights 
and down a half a dozen more until we reached our quarters — palatial 
ones, considering the manner of our coming across, but still they were 
canvas strips four deep. 

We fussed around and peeked through portholes all day. The fol- 
lowing day we were given liberty on certain of the decks, getting there 
just in time to see the detail that had copped the baggage job sweat- 
ing with the officers' trunks far below. 

Old Man Van Sickle, hero of Chateau Thierry ; Bosco Sithen, 
Francis Louret, Raymond and a flock of other birds — there they were 
doing their very best to smash the officers' collection of souvenirs. 
We tendered them the razz and pegged apple cores at them until re- 
minded by a guard that they had a hoosegow aboard the ship. 

The following day we were called upon to help coal the ship. A 
husky gang, including Owen Dawson, who had been fiddling around 
horses for a long time and had forgotten what work was — excepting 
his French constructions, of course; Ward, Kilgore, Jim Weart, Dick 
Burritt, Eskil Bjork, Ralph Schroeder and a flock of other birds usu- 
ally too expert to be nabbed on a detail, volunteered to go over the 
side and pile up coal. They did it so successfully that we picked 
up steam the next morning and shoved off for home. 

After skulking around a lot of ditches for two years, life on the 
ocean wave was pleasant and serene. A few birds started nosing 
around and picked themselves soft details in the commissary and 
kitchen; the rest caught guard. 

Only one thing made the trip notable — we were going home. A 
small daily newspaper published on board by the regiment and Fred 
Smith gave the little details of the passage: how far we were from 
New York ; how a lady had mentioned that we were cattle and should 
be treated accordingly; how the lady, who was on board, nearly had 
Colonel Reilly's famous finger poked into her eye in consequence ; and a 
lot of other hows 

Flu followed us on the boat, nearly taking Cush Pryor with it. 
He was just recovering when we landed, although he did not regain 
his health until months afterward. 

As we drew near home messages of greeting began to plaster the 
bulletin board. Sunday rolled around and the navy served chicken — 
a thing unheard of by itself. At last we swam past Sandy Hook and 
pushed right square into old New York City, tying up at Hoboken. 
Whistles tooted; women squealed welcome from the tops of tugs; 
somebody pegged an apple from one of them and broke a doughboy's 
nose (he had gone through the war unscathed) ; a gun fired salute 



120 A Bug's-Eye View of the War 



from the Statue of Liberty; Mayor Hylan's committee piped wel- 
come through megaphones from their tug; we waved our arms me- 
chanically and took in the show. 

The old steamer was warped to the pier and it wasn't long before 
we were bundled off at Hoboken, running down the long pier with 
full pack, and falling in in one of the freight houses. Here we were 
checked all over again. Salvation Army lassies passed out chocolate 
and offered to send wires; the Y. M. C. A. put out pie and sand- 
wiches, and we piled aboard a West Shore rattler for Camp Merritt, 
New Jersey. 

The sight of a real train tickled all of us plumb pink, and we told 
the conductor so. We landed on the twenty-fifth of April, after 
eighteen months overseas. 

By the way, birds, will you ever forget how funny the women 
looked — the ones we saw on the way to the train? Remember, they 
ispoke English and everything. 

Well, sir, we piled off at Merritt, walked a mile or so, and finally 
found habitable barracks. We had just gone to bed when the captain 
came along and rousted us out at 3 a. m. to take another bath. It 
seems it was the rule. After running under a cold, dribbly shower for 
a minute or two we remained in line for an hour before we were per- 
mitted to return to our beds with our sterile equipment. 

We hopped out of bed early the next morning and began flooding 
the telegraph office with wires sending love and requesting dough, 
beseeching our folks to give until it hurt. Following which we moved 
again and began to discuss chances of getting to New York. 

Passes were issued to a limited number of men in the afternoon. 
An unlimited number ducked to New York, under fences and hidden 
in trucks and every other way. The officers winked at the violation 
and no one attempted to kill it. All were back at eight the next 
morning. 

New York was the daily program for a week, at the end of which 
time we lost our replacements and were ordered to Camp Grant. Some 
of the men taken from us had served with us in every important en- 
gagement, and we didn't see why they shouldn't romp home with us 
and see how our folks acted. But the War Department didn't get the 
idea, and they were shoved off in casual detachments. 

We shook hands all around and promised to come south as soon 
as we could, Jim Waller, Griffin Taylor, Lonnie Rutherford, Bob Will 
and Itchy Koo Eisner all offering hospitality galore. Dad Rohr of- 
fered the gang his general store in Missouri if they'd come down to 
get it. 

The original members of the battery who had been sidetracked to 
other duty had already been given back to us: Tracy Tower, Dick 
Gavitt, Lester Bagnall, Monk Allyn, Fred Sacksteder, Carl Kling, Old 



A Bug's-Eye View of the Wat; 121 



Sarge Maje Meyers and Bob Seeley, all of whom had been loafing 
around headquarters. Dave Hanks, who had been driving a motorcycle 
and was reported killed a dozen times, was with them. Wallace 
Arneson stuck with the medicos, where he could be a sergeant and 
ride 'em. 

More of our replacements left : Andy Ostermann and Bill Rautzen- 
berg, the Gold Dust Twins ; Roy Kelley, Lester Meyers, Clem Bennett, 
Erwin Zeiner and the well-known Leonidas Vinet — they left us in 
tears. Ted Garic, Jawn Bodenschatz, Frank Alsheff, Claude Maloy, 
Gus Reichert, Pat Kerrigan, Jonas Weik, Jim Zerbe, Bill Whiteman 
and Venago Serafini — away they went with 'em. Looking over the 
depleted ranks of the battery, we felt lonesome. 

After a week of twiddling our thumbs we were ordered to Camp 
Grant for discharge. Our deep gloom may be imagined. We tore 
out of that lousy camp. 

Did those tourist sleepers look good standing there on the track? 
They did, mister, they did. We swung aboard and choo-chooed up 
the river to Albany without taking a breath for fear we would wake 
up in a flop trench. Along the Mohawk the next morning we gained 
confidence and began reading the American sign boards. We roared 
into the gosh-darned Twelfth street station the next morning. 

All the way in from Gary they honked and hooted and yelled and 
waved and raved and jumped up and down and histed flags and hol- 
lered for Harry or Joe or George until our eardrums popped. We 
moved in a haze. And then the old station, packed to the roof 
with weeping, laughing men and women and girls — all of them, in- 
cluding us, seeking out some familiar face. 

We trooped outside and attempted to form in columns; but there 
wasn't a chance. Of all the kissing, hugging, delirious crowds ! Even 
Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy couldn't have got away in that crowd if 
he had been in uniform. There was no stopping 'em; and nobody 
wanted to. We moseyed over to the Coliseum with a hundred thou- 
sand relatives hanging on our necks. There it started all over again. 

After the glad, mad welcome we piled out in the street and gave 
Chicago the flossiest parade it has ever seen; straight down old Boul 
Mich, just like we'd been planning to do for two years. Slip horns 
and buglers couldn't make headway against the roar of welcome. The 
sidewalks were banked thick with people all the way. It was raining, 
but they forgot to open their umbrellas in their pop-eyed enthusiasm. 
We came along stepping high along the pavement, ending up at last 
in the Congress, where a banquet was arranged in our honor. 

Governor Lowden spoke. Colonel Reilly spoke, everybody spoke ; 
and the meal was a knockout. An hour's liberty followed, and we 
streaked back to the train. 



122 A Bug's-Eye View of the Wab 



We reached Camp Grant that night, going through the bathing and 
inspection process the minute we were inside the cantonment. 

Equipment was inspected the next day and turned in. We received 
our final physical examinations ; filed through for our discharge papers ; 
got 'em. 

And on the tenth day of May, nineteen hundred and another nine- 
teen, they rushed us through another line, threw some money at us, 
and kicked us out of the gosh-darned army. 



Afterthought 

7 HE imperceptible changes wrought by Time on 
ideas, as well as courthouses, require an epi- 
logue to this book. It is feared that Others, 
who know us not, may receive the impression from 
its pages that we were not soldiers, hut boys. 

To disparage this impression, let us say that this 
record is our own and not intended for the perusal of 
anyone else. The incidents which proved our disci- 
pline and regard for our officers we have scarce 
touched upon because these things need no mention; 
other references but lightly disguise them. 

We had the best captain in the regiment; the best 
colonel in the allied armies, and the best lieutenant- 
colonel in the world. Though we passed through the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death times innumerable, we 
feared no evil, for they were with us. 

Discipline is best shown by results. Battery F fired 
more shells and marched more miles than most artil- 
lery outfits. Some say our record surpassed them 
all, but we are modest and willing to let General 
Pershing decide. 

But the main thing is, it was made possible by will- 
ing obedience to orders and pride in our organization 
and our country. 



H 4fc- 79 



-^1 



V , ^ 



^^^' 



^^ 






%. 



^o v^' : <^; 



4 o^ 



7* V 






.- G 



^ 



<c? 



.S^r-r 



r^v 










% 


" 


' 


v^". 


^1'-', 


, 


"o 




.^^ 


* 


^^1.: 




o 


C, 


</• 


^ 










^'' 






ot 






> kVJ'^M. 






%" ^^ A^ *■ Ci< 



■•••• /■ . 


-. """-^ 




' * ♦ o 


J • "^ogR 


^^°* 


o 'J*'^ 


^^,* 


v^^ .. ^-^ "^ 


"°^ 






■^..<-' 



^: ^^ 



o V 



^i:^' 



°W1W: 



o 




m^; 









^"t' 



^' 












.\ 



'V 



..y ■'<^ 



"^0^ 

,-^0. 



> <^ .^"^ 

■-,^„-^'' •- <^.'^ JJ^K 

Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
>><-!, Treatment Date: jaw 20O1 

<> *' • PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



A 9^ 







o V 






> 



.^'' . 



^^' 



"^^ 






^' 



€: %.^ 



<". 










o 






' • • ' rj^^' 



A 



,0 -^ -:^^: 






/^^f/),/^ 



> 




,0' . ' • «^ > 



<r ;Vf\§^A>, ^-^.A^"^ J 



i^^S-'J 



<.^'"-^, 'WiW 



r- 







.0' 



G' 



A 



-^> 



V 















A < 






,-0 



. -Jv^ , - « « ^ . 

.I'D- . _.rC<'>- ^ '?' 



./■ 



^" "V 






-0^ 










DEC /3 

N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 









^yi^K^ -^ -^^ • 



A 



^. 






^Ov-. 



Ao^ 



<! ^ 1*0 -7- . 



